CNN panel clashes over Biden debate performance: 'The idea that this is one bad night... is incomprehensible'
As some Democrats eye prospective replacements for President Biden should he step down as the party's nominee, former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield contrarily thinks the atmosphere around the 2024 matchup is very much the same as it was before last Thursday's debate.
"The reality is the race has not fundamentally changed," Bedingfield said during a CNN panel segment on Sunday morning, while conceding that Biden had a poor performance against Trump.
"I think there's universal agreement [it] wasn't a great night for Joe Biden. He said as much. But what we see in all the data that has emerged since Thursday is the fundamental head-to-head hasn't shifted. People are not suddenly moving to Trump."
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She went on to allege that voters failed to find Trump's arguments compelling, and that many were concerned about his responses to questions about the "vulnerable" topics of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot and his potential reluctance to accept the outcome of November's election.
"He really did himself a huge disservice on Thursday night [with his answers on those topics]," she continued.
"For Biden, now, the task is to go out, do what he did in North Carolina, show that energy, show that it was just one bad night. Every campaign recovers from one bad night..."
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, also on Sunday's panel, went beyond saying it was "one bad night."
"The idea that this is just one bad night; that voters are going to be asked not to believe what they saw with their own eyes on Thursday; is incomprehensible to me," she said.
"The fact of the matter is, in January, Pew Research Center found that only 29% of Americans thought that Joe Biden had mental acuity to be president and yet, even then, in January, this was still a close race.
"What is absolutely unfathomable to me, what felt like an enormous political earthquake on Thursday night, where America got to see with their own eyes, what is happening inside this White House… what we saw is horrifying and yet the polls may not change because there's a chance that voters already went into Thursday, thinking, ‘I’m concerned that this is who Joe Biden already is, and they have already made that calculation,'" she added.
When reached for comment, the Biden campaign pointed Fox News Digital to a memo, appearing, to some degree, to align with remarks both panelists made about the lack of change following the debate: "It’s a familiar story: Following Thursday night’s debate, the beltway class is counting Joe Biden out. The data in the battleground states, though, tells a different story.
"On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base," it reads in part.
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Democrats have been in panic mode since Biden's dismal debate performance last week, with many calling for him to step down so another prominent Democrat – perhaps California Gov. Gavin Newsom or former first lady Michelle Obama – can take his place as the party's nominee ahead of November's faceoff with former President Trump.
A CNN flash poll posted on-air indicated that 67% of debate watchers believed Trump was the debate's clear winner compared to 33% in Biden's corner.
For comparison, a similar flash poll from 2020 saw 55% of voters say Biden won the debate compared to 39% for Trump.