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Joe Biden tries to calm nerves of wealthy backers after debate debacle

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2 years ago

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Joe Biden tries to calm nerves of wealthy backers after debate debacle

Joe Biden and top allies have sought to reassure Democratic donors that he can defeat Donald Trump, after a disastrous debate performance left wealthy backers divided over whether the US president should abandon his re-election bid.

Biden conceded that he “didn’t have a great night” as he met donors at a fundraiser in East Hampton, New York, on Saturday, where the cost of entry ranged from $3,300 to $250,000 per person, according to the invitation.

“I understand the concern about the debate. I get it,” Biden told supporters in the wealthy resort town.

But the president argued that “voters had a different reaction,” adding: “Since the debate, the polls show a little movement, moved us up actually.”

Few polls have been released since Thursday night’s debate, but betting markets moved dramatically against Biden during and after the showdown. A Morning Consult poll conducted on Friday found roughly half of Democratic voters said Biden should step aside in favour of another candidate.

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Three donors familiar with the East Hampton fundraiser described the mood in the room as subdued, despite the president appearing stronger than he did on the debate stage on Thursday night.

Biden was expected to attend another fundraiser later on Saturday in Red Bank, New Jersey, hosted by the state’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy.

Senior Democratic lawmakers and party grandees have also reached out to donors in recent days. Chuck Schumer, the most senior Democrat on Capitol Hill, has tried to reassure several backers about Biden’s candidacy since the debate, said two party fundraisers.

There have been mounting calls for the president to step aside and allow another Democrat to be the party’s nominee for the White House ahead of November’s election.

At 81 years old, Biden has faced questions for months about his age and fitness for office. But any concerns that Democratic insiders had privately about the incumbent president spilled out into the open on Thursday night, after nearly 50mn Americans watched Biden struggle through a live, televised debate against Trump. The president rambled, appeared to lose his train of thought and struggled to complete sentences.

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Biden has insisted that he will stay in the race, and campaign officials say he will participate in a second presidential debate planned for September.

The campaign has touted what it says has been a record influx of grassroots, or small-dollar, donations, since Thursday. A campaign official said on Saturday morning that the campaign had raised more than $27mn between the debate and Friday evening.

“It wasn’t his greatest debate. But it is 90 minutes . . . in a campaign and in an administration, where he has achieved enormous things,” Anita Dunn, a longtime senior adviser to Biden, said on MSNBC on Saturday. “Maybe it wasn’t a great debate. But he has been a great president.”

Asked if Biden’s inner circle had discussed him dropping out after the debate, Dunn replied: “No, the conversation we had is, ‘OK, what do we do next?”

Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign, accused the “beltway class” of “counting Joe Biden out”.

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“If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls,” O’Malley Dillon said.

But the White House assurances have done little to quell public unease. Late Friday, the influential New York Times editorial board published a leader urging Biden to step aside.

On Saturday in East Hampton, reporters travelling with the president saw a group of onlookers holding signs that read: “Please drop out for US,” and “Step down for democracy,” and: “We love you but it’s time.”

The debate fallout has divided Democratic donors, whose support is critical to fund a campaign that is set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to secure another four years in the White House. Biden’s long fundraising advantage over Trump has eroded in recent months. Trump outraised Biden in both April and May amid a swell of support following his conviction on 34 criminal charges in New York last month.

While some donors have redoubled their efforts to rally people around Biden, others are more skittish. One Democratic fundraiser noted some Wall Street megadonors intend to keep bankrolling the Biden campaign while trying to convince him to make way for another candidate. Another camp intends to withhold their donations altogether.

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Still, several high-profile Democratic donors have come to Biden’s full-throated defence.

LinkedIn founder and billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman sought to calm fellow deep-pocketed Biden supporters in a letter on Friday in which he acknowledged that the president had a “very bad debate performance”. But he added that it would be a ‘bad idea” to launch a public campaign to get him to step aside.

“This election is very close, and I don’t know who will win,” Hoffman wrote. “But as a political philanthropist, with 129 days until the election, I am doubling down on my bet that America will choose Biden’s decency, care, and proven success over Trump’s violence, lies, and chaos.”

Trump narrowly leads Biden in national opinion polls, according to the latest FiveThirtyEight average, as well as in most of the key swing states that will decide the outcome of November’s election.

One Democratic fundraiser said donors would be looking at polling in the coming days to plot their next move.

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Several are already contemplating who they would throw their weight behind if Biden were to step aside, with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer among the most popular names being floated. Three donors and bundlers also said Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries was gaining interest from Wall Street elites.

“The results of those polls will help donors decide what to do next . . . if the result is negative there will be consequences,” the fundraiser said.

But the Biden campaign showed little outward signs of concern about the polls at the weekend.

Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research and a pollster for the Biden campaign, said in a post on X Saturday evening that two surveys he had conducted in battleground states following the debate showed it had “no effect on the vote choice”.

“The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it is still extremely close and competitive today,” Garin said.

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Additional reporting by Alex Rogers in Washington

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Park Ranger Dies After Falling Into a Crevasse on Mt. McKinley

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6 hours ago

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June 6, 2026

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Park Ranger Dies After Falling Into a Crevasse on Mt. McKinley

A ranger who was assigned to a climbing patrol on Mount McKinley in Alaska, North America’s tallest peak, died after falling into a crevasse on Thursday, the National Park Service said.

Officials identified the ranger as Robin Pendery, 33, of Enumclaw, Wash., a seasonal employee for the park service, and said she had been near a camp that sits at about 14,000 feet up the mountain when she fell. Parks Service workers responded immediately, the agency said, but Ms. Pendery did not survive. It did not release further details about the incident.

Ms. Pendery’s death came just over a week after three members of a Latvian climbing expedition died in an accident on the same mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve.

The Park Service said that Ms. Pendery had joined the mountaineering staff at the park in 2024.

“We are heartbroken by the loss of a member of our Denali family,” Brooke Merrell, the park’s superintendent, said in a statement. “Our mountaineering rangers dedicate themselves to serving visitors and helping others in one of the most challenging environments in the world. Today, we mourn the loss of a valued colleague, friend and teammate.”

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Ms. Pendery was a nursing student at the University of Washington, according to her LinkedIn profile, and then became a registered nurse. She had nearly a decade of experience as a seasonal mountain guide, including for Alpine Ascents International, an expedition company based in Seattle.

A biography page for Ms. Pendery on the Alpine Ascents website said that, along with Mount McKinley, she had climbed Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and Mount St. Helens in Washington State and Mount Hood in Oregon.

“She was a serious and compassionate professional,” Gordon Janow, the director of programs for Alpine Ascents, wrote in an email on Friday. “Highly respected by peers, thorough, competent and an absolute pleasure to spend time with. We guided together in India, and her level of care for clients and passion for the mountains were unsurpassed. We’re devastated and her companionship will be sorely missed.”

Mount McKinley, which soars to 20,310 feet above sea level, was renamed as Mount Denali, the name long used by Alaska Native tribes, by President Barack Obama in 2015, but last year, President Trump reinstated the name that honored the former U.S. president William McKinley.

The recent stretch of the climbing season in the national park, which typically runs from late April through mid-July, has been particularly deadly.

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Last week, three members of the Latvian Mountaineering Association died and a fourth was critically injured in what officials described as an accident at about 18,000 feet on the mountain.

The recent death toll is above average for the mountain, where more than 130 people have died since the park started keeping records more than a century ago. Three people died in Denali National Park in 2025, according to Park Service data, and there was one death in the park in both 2024 and 2023.

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See Where the L.A. Mayoral Candidates Have Done Best So Far

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14 hours ago

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June 6, 2026

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See Where the L.A. Mayoral Candidates Have Done Best So Far

The final matchup for the Los Angeles mayoral runoff remains unsettled, but precinct-level returns show the contours of the race. The incumbent mayor, Karen Bass, secured one of the two spots in the November election, but Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman are battling for second.

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Circle size is proportional to the amount each precinct’s leading candidate is ahead. Results are preliminary and do not include a large number of uncounted mail ballots.

The results on the map reflect the nearly 500,000 votes that were tabulated on election night, which include early and mail-in votes that were returned early and ballots cast in-person on Election Day. Election officials are still in the process of counting hundreds of thousands of ballots in the race, and high-level updates will continue to be reported each day through at least June 12. But updated precinct-level data is not expected to be released until the end of June.

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That means these results reflect voters who participated earlier in the process. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, as ballots that arrived later began being processed, the updated results were notably more favorable to the Democrats than they were to Mr. Pratt. The lead Mr. Pratt had over Ms. Raman as of the end of election night had been cut in half as of Friday.

Even so, the incomplete results highlight the socioeconomic fault lines that have divided the city in this election and the coalitions that each candidate has built:

Karen Bass

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  • Ms. Bass leads handily in the Black, Latino and white liberal strongholds that underpinned her 2022 election.

  • Three areas of support in particular stand out for her: South Los Angeles, where she got her start as a grass-roots activist during the crack cocaine epidemic; East Los Angeles and the East Valley, where organized labor routinely turns out Latino voters; and bastions of older white Democrats, like Mar Vista, which were part of her district when she served in Congress.

  • Wealthy precincts like Pacific Palisades, which was ravaged by wildfire last year, spurned her, but the Palisades also overwhelmingly opposed her in 2022.

Spencer Pratt

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  • Mr. Pratt has done well so far in the most affluent parts of the city, including Pacific Palisades, where he grew up and where his family’s home burned down in the fires last year.

  • As a registered Republican, he also did well in pockets of MAGA conservatism like the Sunland-Tujunga area in the far northeast San Fernando Valley.

  • He won over some Jewish communities on the city’s Westside with direct appeals to pro-Israel voters and also did well in expatriate Iranian-American hubs like Tehrangeles in Westwood.

Nithya Raman

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  • Ms. Raman, who was elected to the City Council in 2020 with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, has maintained her urban progressive base in places like Echo Park and Silver Lake, where she lives.

  • Her focus on affordability and her public policy expertise yielded support in dense neighborhoods with lots of cash-strapped, educated renters, like Los Feliz.

  • She has also done well in precincts around college campuses like Occidental College and the University of Southern California.

Of course, these results will change as the rest of the ballots are tallied over the next few weeks. Election officials have not provided an estimate of how many ballots remain uncounted specifically in the Los Angeles mayoral race, but countywide figures suggest that a substantial share of the vote is still outstanding.

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As of Friday night, Los Angeles County had reported 1.6 million ballots counted and estimated that roughly 540,000 ballots remained countywide, with more still arriving. Late mail-in ballots have been more favorable to the Democrats this cycle, so the final results may move toward Ms. Bass and Ms. Raman at even higher rates than they did for Ms. Bass in the 2022 primary.

Rick Caruso, a centrist Democrat and former Republican, led on election night in 2022, but Ms. Bass steadily gained ground over the following weeks. She ultimately overtook him, winning the primary with 43 percent of the vote to Mr. Caruso’s 36 percent.

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Democrat Xavier Becerra wins the top spot in November’s race for California governor

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17 hours ago

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June 5, 2026

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Democrat Xavier Becerra wins the top spot in November’s race for California governor

Democratic candidate for governor in California, Xavier Becerra, speaks to supporters during his election night gathering at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes on June 2 in Los Angeles, Calif.

Mario Tama/Getty Images


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Mario Tama/Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO — Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November election for California governor, according to a race call by The Associated Press. After days of counting ballots, it remains unclear who will claim the second spot in the fall.

In California’s unusual primary system, all candidates, regardless of party, appear on a single ballot open to any registered voter. The top two candidates then move on to the general election. An estimated 3.5 million uncounted ballots remain. The state also counts mail-in ballots that arrive up to seven days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

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The state hasn’t had a wide-open primary like this one since the late 1990s. The winner in November will lead the country’s most populous state, facing a large deficit and other obstacles, including the state’s high cost of living, homelessness and wildfire risk. Incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is term limited and is widely thought to be running for president in 2028.

Becerra, former Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden, has staged one of the most surprising comebacks in recent state political history. As recently as April, polls were showing Becerra — also a former member of Congress and California attorney general — languishing in single digits in a crowded field.

“The people of the great state of California, in the greatest nation on earth, have spoken — loudly and proudly,” Becerra said in a written statement. “We will not be bought. We will not be bullied. And we are never backing down. November, here we come.”

For second place, Republican businessman Steve Hilton still has an edge over billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer, but Steyer has been gaining ground as ballots continue to be counted.

Hilton was endorsed by President Trump in April, and in later polls, he pulled ahead of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other major Republican in the race. British-born Hilton is a former Fox News commentator who also served as a political adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. He has campaigned for change in California after 16 years under total Democratic control.

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A Hilton win would set Becerra on a glidepath to victory. Winning statewide would be an uphill battle for any Republican in a state where there are nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans, and no GOP candidate has won statewide in 20 years.

Steyer would present a rockier road for Becerra. If the billionaire former hedge fund manager makes the runoff, it will set up a costly intraparty fight. Steyer has spent more than $213 million of his own money to boost his candidacy, making the race the most expensive gubernatorial election in California.

It’s already been an election season of unexpected developments. Some of the state’s most high-profile Democrats — former Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and California Attorney General Rob Bonta — all stayed out of the race from the beginning.

In April, the race was disrupted when then-U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor imploded amid allegations of sexual assault and harassment. Swalwell resigned from Congress shortly after the accusations surfaced and has denied assault allegations.

Swalwell had been gaining in polls and racking up high-profile endorsements and his exit seemed to primarily benefit Becerra.

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The narrowing field also quieted Democrats’ fears of splitting their vote to the extent that Bianco and Hilton would win the top spots in the June primary. That would have resulted in a guaranteed Republican governor in a state where Democrats outnumber GOP voters 2 to 1. Instead, though, Becerra surged. He has been aided by political groups operating independently of his campaign.

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