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      ‘Oh thank God’: Democratic swing state voters feel relief after Biden drops out

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      For many Democratic swing state voters, Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election came as a relief.“Oh thank God,” said Cathy Gramze, a retired nurse who lives in the suburbs of Detroit. “My diagnosis has for a long time been that he cannot run again and I am not entirely sure that he should finish his term in office.”Gramze had worried about Biden’s fitness long before the debate. His 27 June performance merely confirmed what she had long feared. “A lot of the time he is the president we need, but some of the time he isn’t.”Kamala Harris, who Biden endorsed on Sunday and who has earned the endorsement of most prominent Democratic elected officials, “needs to be the presidential nominee”, Gramze said.For more than a year, voters across the political spectrum have been saying they feel Biden, who is 81 years old, is too old to run for re-election. Those anxieties crescendoed in the wake of his first debate with Donald Trump, in which Trump lied repeatedly about a range of issues and Biden struggled to push back or even answer questions coherently. Following the debate, more than 30 Democrats in Congress called on Biden to end his presidential campaign, with the powerful former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly ratcheting up the pressure on Biden to drop out of the race last week.In the last few weeks, polling has increasingly shown Biden lagging in critical swing states, with large majorities of Democratic party voters indicating they believe he should not renew his campaign. Recent national polls also show Trump losing to the vice-president, whose path to victory, like Biden’s, will involve winning the critical states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.Not only Democrats welcomed the announcement. Dan Rose, who has long supported Trump, said he was glad Biden pulled out of the race.“He doesn’t have the caliber we need in a president,” said Rose, who said he worries about the economy. Rose, who is from De Pere, Wisconsin, said he will still support Trump but felt Biden had made the right choice in ending his campaign. “The Democrats might be in a pickle now,” he added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf the Democrats are in a pickle, few grassroots party members expressed concern following Biden’s announcement.“How courageous and brave of him to do that,” said Chris Fleming, who is retired and volunteers for a group organizing rural Democratic voters in Wisconsin. This year, Fleming’s husband had $15,000 in student debt cancelled by the Biden administration – which she said left her feeling grateful for Biden. “I have nothing but respect for him,” she said.Jake Knashishu, an attorney from Decatur, Georgia, said Biden’s departure from the race “relieved, for the most part, concerns about him being able to really present himself as an effective alternative to Trump”. Biden’s withdrawal gives Democrats a better shot at Georgia, Knanishu said.He had spoken with a neighbor on Sunday who “saw Joe Biden as kind of Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2.0 – holding on and refusing to pass the torch and maintain stability”, said Knashishu. “She just feels relieved, because she knows that at least we’re not going to have that happen again.” More

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      Trump’s return to rally stage met with prayers, excitement and confusion over JD Vance

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      “He was spared by the hand of God!” a man wrapped in a flag chanted as he walked past a line of people snaking outside the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.The display prompted a smattering of loud cries of “USA! USA!” but the general tone of the packed-in crowd who had gathered to see Donald Trump’s first rally since a would-be assassin opened fire on him at a campaign event in Pennsylvania a week ago was more laid-back.Indeed, despite the roiling impact of the shooting on US politics over the past week, it felt like back to business-as-usual for the Trump campaign road show.Joe Attard, a worker at a factory that makes sheds, made the drive from Southgate, Michigan, to Grand Rapids hoping to catch a glimpse of Trump, who was appearing in the crucial battleground state after being formally anointed as the Republican presidential candidate and hitting the campaign trail with his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.“There’s a real feeling of community here, everybody in the same mind,” Attard said. “It’s a great feeling.” Other than a lone man across the barricades holding a “Deport Trump” sign, Attard seemed to be right. There were few people around without some kind of Trump-branded apparel.Perhaps in keeping with a party that has fully unified around Trump after the shocking attempt on his life, most people seemed excited to be at the rally. A man in an army baseball cap pointed people towards the ADA-accessible line. People waved and cheered for the Secret Service officers and mounted police patrolling the street.Standing in line, Isaiah White, a 25-year-old from Hudsonville, Michigan, said he was “very excited” for another chance to see Trump. The last time Trump came to Van Andel Arena, White got in line too late and had to watch on the Jumbotron outside the venue.Betsy Gatchell Goff, who came to Van Andel Arena from her hometown of Benton Harbor, Michigan, said she thought Trump was “a unifying figure for our country”. Gatchell Goff hoped that with Trump back in office, “we’ll have a president who does more than sleep all day”, a disparaging reference to Joe Biden.But there was also a strain of bitter sentiment among the crowd. “Trump won” and “Unvaxxed and Proud” were two of the most common slogans on T-shirts, hats and flags.The mood around last Saturday’s assassination attempt was surprisingly nonchalant among attendees. Indeed, as has happened with Trump’s campaign, the imagery and fact of the attack had been exploited for gain. A vendor on the corner sold shirts sporting a bloodstained Trump, fist raised, with the caption: “Missed me, motherfucker.”Attard was glad to see Trump back on the campaign trail so soon after an attempt on his life. “It shows the world that he’s strong,” Attard said.Among the elected officials present, the tone was more reverent. As the event opener, a local Michigan representative gave a prayer that thanked God for “graciously sparing President Trump”.Security, on the other hand, was fully alert. Secret Service and TSA agents, including at least one K-9 unit, motioned people through metal detectors, while legions of staffers in crisp polos emblazoned with “Team Trump” ushered people to their seats.There was serious political red meat from some speakers. Michigan Republican party chair Pete Hoekstra took the stage to open the event and called governor Gretchen Whitmer the “worst governor in the United States”. Anti-Whitmer sentiment was widespread, with people throughout the event calling her “Witless”, “Witchmer” or “Whitler”.The state of Michigan politics was a prominent theme. Bill Huizenga, the US representative for Michigan’s fourth district, said Trump was in Grand Rapids to show the world how “the blue wall” of midwestern states was “going to crumble like a cookie”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Grand Rapids rally was the first since JD Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate. The Ohio senator seemed to be a bit of an unknown quantity among rally attendees.“I’ll support him because Trump supports him,” Betsy Gatchell Goff said. Isaiah White admitted: “Honestly, I had to Wikipedia him, but he seems all right.”The tone shifted once Vance appeared. The new vice-presidential candidate opened with a joke about the Ohio-Michigan football rivalry and followed it up with challenging Vice-President Kamala Harris’s record, saying: “What the hell have you got?,” prompting the loudest cheers of the afternoon.But much of the tone was the usual politics-as-entertainment fare that is a hallmark of Trump rallies. Even in the wake of an attempted assassination, Trump’s rally struck a celebratory tone in this extraordinary American election.As the crowd filtered in, Macho Man by the Village People and Born Free by Kid Rock alternated with La Vie enRose by Édith Piaf. A sizzle reel from the Trump campaign lit up the arena, then launched straight into a dramatized victimhood narrative.“The only crime I’ve committed is to fiercely defend this country,” Trump’s voice boomed in the accompanying voiceover. At the line: “When I’m re-elected, I will obliterate the deep state!,” the crowd erupted into cheers and whistles. In a later promotional video, a union worker said: “Fuck you” to a reporter when asked about Joe Biden’s policies.At this, people throughout the crowd broke into laughter. More

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      Trump attacks Biden and Harris in first rally since assassination attempt

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      Donald Trump launched a full-throated attack on Democratic rivals Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday as he returned to the campaign trail a week after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.In his first rally since the shocking shooting, and his first with new running mate Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump appeared on stage with the conspicuous white ear bandage he wore during the Republican national convention replaced by a smaller covering. He referred to the assassination attempt as a “horrific event” and said he stood before supporters “by the grace of God. I shouldn’t be here, but let’s face it, something very special happened.”Trump said “he owed his life to immigration”, because he’d turned his head to the right toward a chart about border crossings fractionally before the bullet whizzed past his head, grazing his ear. “I hope I never have to go through that again,” Trump added. He said his opponents call him “a threat to democracy” but countered that he “took a bullet for democracy”.Trump also referred to leadership chaos within the Democratic party, which has been consumed with a debate over whether Joe Biden should step down from his re-election bid amid concerns about his age and mental acuity. “They have no idea who their candidate is, and neither do we,” Trump jibed. He called Biden a “feeble old guy”.Trump, appearing jocular and in good spirits during a lengthy speech, said he would rather be in Michigan than sitting “on some boring beach watching the waves coming in” – another dig at Biden, who is currently recovering from Covid at his Delaware beach home.As Trump campaigned on Saturday, his team put out an official update on his injuries. Texas Representative Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump’s White House physician, said that the bullet fired from Crooks’ gun came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear” and produced a “2cm wide wound”.Jackson said the wound is healing but that the former president is still experiencing some bleeding, requiring an ear dressing. “Given the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required,” he wrote.At the Michigan arena, the former US president went on to predict a landslide election, asking the crowd whether they preferred he run against Vice-President Kamala Harris, to loud boos, or Biden, to cheers. But he said he would also also be happy to run against Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer who, he said, has done “a terrible job”.Trump hit his usual themes, attacking electric vehicles, China and trade and promising a massive effort on deportation. He talked in his usual extreme rhetoric, especially when it came to immigration, where he talked in dire terms of crimes committed by immigrants that echo rightwing conspiracy theories.View image in fullscreenBut Trump also pushed back on accusations that a second Trump presidency would be influenced by the extremist manifesto Project 2025 from the conservative Heritage Foundation and including scores of people close to Trump and his campaign.The document, he said, had been produced by the “severe right – very, very conservative and the opposite of the radical left. I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t want to know anything about it.”Trump was preceded on the stage by Vance, who received a warm reception, despite the sports rivalry between his home state of Ohio and Michigan.Vance criticized both Republicans and Democrats in his speech for previously failing to protect manufacturing jobs in Michigan and the US. “Both parties were broken in very profound ways until Trump came along,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCrowds numbering in the thousands waited outside the 12,000-capacity Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to greet the former president amid what was expected to be improved security after the Secret Service and local police allowed 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks to get on a roof with sightline of the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, and fire several shots at the former president.Grand Rapids law enforcement declined to say whether it had deployed extra officers, referring questions to the presidential security agency. But, unlike the open county fair fairgrounds last week, Trump’s rally on Saturday was in an enclosed arena where security would be easier to secure and without, as in Butler, outer areas that were assigned to local police.“I think what you’re going to see is just a visual increase of additional agents and certainly some pretty unprecedented level of police officers just because it’s the first event after the previous Saturday,” former Secret Service agent Jason Russell told Michigan Live.Eric Winstrom, the Grand Rapids police chief, said his department had worked closely with federal partners on planning for the event “with solid operational planning, effective resource deployment, and an unwavering commitment to the safety of the community we serve”.John Schaut, chair of the Republican party chapter in Kent, Michigan, told Michigan Live the shooting hadn’t deterred Trump fans and predicted “a blowout event”.View image in fullscreenMichigan is one of a handful of must-win states for Trump and Biden. Recent polling averages place Trump with a 4% lead over Biden, at 46% to 42%. That tallies with the pattern in other key battleground states, especially in the wake of the disastrous debate performance by Biden three weeks ago that triggered a wave of panic in the party about this electability. On a national level, Trump has opened a lead against Biden in head-to-head surveys.According to local news reports, supporters began arriving for the rally as early as Friday afternoon, and by midday Saturday, lines to get in to see Trump stretched six blocks.“I think it’s amazing. It just shows how strong he is and we’re so very proud of him, not that we would expect anybody, if they weren’t up to it, to be here like this,” supporter Julie Bryant of Marshall, Michigan, told Michigan Live. “We’re just here to support, especially after what he’s just been through.”Supporter Adam Salton said he’d been in line since 6am: “Screw the right and the left, this is about Trump, this is about us. He could be on a golf course right now, he could be with his family, but he’s out here doing this for us so I’ll stand out here for eight hours for him, because it’s for us.” More

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      Trump to hold first public campaign event since assassination attempt

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      Republican nominee Donald Trump will hold his first public campaign rally since a shocking assassination attempt a week ago by appearing in a crucial rust belt battleground state alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.The return to the campaign trail by Trump comes after the attempted killing of the former US president at a Pennsylvania rally last Saturday when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire, injuring Trump and others and killing one rally-goer.The shooting roiled American politics, ratcheting up the tension in a race already fueled by fears over rising political violence and the prospect of civil unrest. It also dominated the past week’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee from which Trump emerged at the head of a remarkably unified and energized campaign.Tonight’s joint rally with Vance is the first for the pair since they officially became the nominees. Trump kicked off the gathering of Republicans by naming Vance as his vice-presidential pick.Michigan is one of the crucial swing states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential election. Trump narrowly won the state by just more than 10,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden flipped it back in 2020, winning by a margin of 154,000 votes on his way to the presidency.“Welcome to Michigan, Donald Trump and JD Vance,” the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said in an Instagram post on Saturday, and outlined “three things you should know about our great state.“Here, we protect reproductive freedom. We’re not interested in your national abortion ban. Two, we find ways to put money back in Michiganders pockets … and three, we’re a proud union state and UAW workers still remember when Donald Trump broke his promises to Michigan workers … and Michigan is going to reject your extreme Project 2025 agenda.”With Vance by his side, Trump will deliver remarks in Grand Rapids, a historically Republican stronghold that has trended increasingly blue in recent elections.Whitmer’s caustic welcome was seen as polling indicates she would beat Trump by 1% in the key swing state if she were to become the Democratic presidential nominee, but trails the former president by almost 4% nationally in a hypothetical general election matchup.Trump’s choice of Vance was seen as a move to gain support among so-called rust belt voters in places such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio who helped Trump notch his surprise 2016 victory.Vance specifically mentioned those places during his acceptance speech at the Republican national convention, stressing his roots growing up poor in small-town Ohio and pledging not to forget working-class people whose “jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocrats have dominated recent elections in Michigan, but Republicans now see an opening in the state as Democrats are increasingly divided about whether Biden should drop out of the race.Biden has insisted he is not dropping out, and has attempted to turn the focus back towards Trump, saying on Friday that Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican national convention showcased a “dark vision for the future”.In polls over the last week, Trump has often extended his narrow lead over Biden, though the race overall remains close. Trump, however, is continuing to perform strongly in the crucial battleground states that are vital for victory. His campaign also insists that the contest is broadening to bring in some states – such as Virginia – that Democrats previously considered safe.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      In Dearborn, home of largest Arab American community, despair and apathy dominate

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      Abu Bilal sits quietly on a stool in Oriental Fashion, a clothing store he owns on Dearborn’s Warren Avenue, listening to the radio. It’s hard to ascertain whether his tone when talking about the war in Gaza is one of near-complete defeatism or seething anger.“Ninety people were killed today; hundreds were injured,” he says, referencing an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis on Saturday.“No one is talking about it; no one cares. I have one question: where is the humanity?”On a scorching Saturday afternoon in Dearborn, Michigan, the feeling of despairing resignation over the war and the role America’s political leaders are playing in enabling the suffering in the besieged territory is near-omnipresent – and so is a sense of apathy over the coming presidential election.Down Maple Street, a man getting a haircut at the Al-Rehab Barber Shop says in Arabic that regardless of who the president is or will be following November’s election, it’s not going to make any difference to him. The barber says that he didn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election and doesn’t plan to vote in November. Both refused to offer their names, saying they prefer not to be identified for their political views.As the death toll continues to mount in Gaza with little sign of a political solution forthcoming, the mood in America’s largest Arab American community in recent months and weeks has decidedly changed. While flags and protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has now killed more than 38,000 people, drew fervent energy and anger to Dearborn’s streets when the city became a protest hub around the state’s presidential primary, the sense today seems one of resignation and anger at America’s political leadership.For Joe Biden, who won the key battleground state of Michigan in 2020 by just 154,000 votes, that could be deeply damaging come November.When the US president defeated Donald Trump en route to the White House in 2020, turnout in Dearborn was around 10% higher than the previous election four years earlier. Biden also won 10% more votes than the Democratic party’s previous presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, suggesting voters in Dearborn four years ago were energized.Today, that positivity is nowhere to be found. During the Democratic party’s primary in February, 6,432 Dearborn voters chose “uncommitted” in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war, out of a total of 100,000 Michiganders who did the same. A Pew Research Center survey from May found that both Biden and Trump were the least-liked pair of presidential candidates in at least three decades. Trump currently holds a narrow lead in the state according to polls.There is little sign that support among Arab Americans has rebounded since the peak of the uncommitted movement’s strength earlier this year. According to a poll conducted by the Arab American Institute in May, Biden has the support of less than 20% of Arab Americans – down from nearly 60% in 2020. The poll estimates he could lose 91,000 votes in Michigan alone.When members of Biden’s election campaign team visited Dearborn in January, they were met on one occasion by an empty room after Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, and two other Arab American state representatives declined to meet with the team, rejecting a campaign meeting to discuss elections rather than a substantive discussion about the war.“If you’re planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab American community on why they should vote for your candidate, don’t do it on the same day you announce selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members,” Hammoud wrote on X at the time.On Friday, Biden held a campaign rally at a school a few miles north of Dearborn, but for the most part his campaign’s overtures to Arab Americans across the country have been rejected.“The whole community was aware [that the administration had sent campaign officials to meet with the community], and I think it says a lot, that he sees us as no more than votes and that it’s been normalized for our people back home to be killed,” says Jenin Yaseen, an artist whose family is from a village outside Nablus in the occupied West Bank.She says didn’t vote in 2020 and doesn’t plan to do so this year. “I don’t think that we see that there’s a distinguishment between Trump and Biden,” she says. She added that her position would not change should Biden step aside and Kamala Harris take his place at the top of the Democratic ticket. “Kamala Harris’ stance around Palestine is pretty much the same. She’s just as guilty as Joe Biden is.”She says anger among Dearborn’s Arab American communities has simmered for years.“Dearborn is made up of people from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere that have been directly impacted by American imperialism,” she says. “There’s also this big sense of guilt being here.”But a victory for Trump could be devastating for Arab Americans with family in the Middle East.Under the previous Trump administration, raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcements (Ice) officers and deportation orders drove fear into the heart of the community. While Biden is on track to match the Trump administration’s number of deportation orders by focusing on border regions rather than the interior US, the president in February signed an order protecting around 6,000 Palestinians from deportation for 18 months.The proprietor at Nabil Hair Salon on Warren Avenue says he’d like to offer his views but was afraid it could affect him and his business.“We’re not looking for any attention,” he says, asking not to be identified by name. “We don’t know what could happen if we talk politics.” More

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      True Gretch review: Whitmer’s story – next stop the White House?

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      Joe Biden’s re-election bid remains on life support, the casualty of an indelible senior moment on the debate stage. Biden says he’s not quitting but polls show him falling behind. The moment has cast a spotlight on the alternatives, including a passel of Democratic governors seen as the party’s future.Among them is Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, who reportedly confided that Biden can’t win her state. But she has since announced that even if he were to drop his re-election bid, she would not run.And she denies that she wants Biden to quit.“Joe Biden is our nominee,” she posted on X. “He is in it to win it and I support him.”As it happens, Whitmer – the non-candidate – is out with a memoir: a traditional marker of ambitions for higher things.Like most campaign memoirs, True Gretch is about image improvement. As expected, Whitmer describes personal growth and political ascent. A light read, True Gretch’s underlying message is simple: “Don’t you forget about me.”Given Michigan is a swing state, that’s unlikely. Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 election, it will matter again in four years.First elected in 2018, Whitmer’s time in office will expire on 1 January 2027. She will need a new gig. Why not the White House?On the page, Lisa Dickey, author and ghostwriter, provides a valuable assist. Her client roster includes Jill Biden, George Stephanopoulos and Newsom. She “melded so well into Whitmer world” that she received “honorary ‘Half-Whit’ status”, according to the governor.Whitmer also reminds us of her familial familiarity with conflict and politics. She pays tribute to Dana “Dano” Whitmer, her grandfather. In the early 1970s, as school superintendent of Pontiac, a city north of Detroit, he implemented court-ordered desegregation. It was rough.The Ku Klux Klan threatened him and his family. Whitmer chronicles school bus bombings and the abuse suffered by her grandmother. “The phone would ring … someone on the other end would say, ‘Your husband’s dead.’ Dano was unflappable through all of it.”Whitmer’s parents were lawyers. Richard Whitmer, a Republican, served in the administration of William Milliken, a Michigan governor, then became chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Sharon “Sherry” Reisig, the governor’s mother, worked for the state attorney general.Years later, in the depths of Covid, Whitmer faced death threats and a kidnap plot, the affair of the “Wolverine Watchmen”. Charges under state law yielded five convictions. Federal prosecutors charged six more men, four of whom were convicted. Two pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors.Whitmer describes a protest in April 2020 outside her office: “Swastikas. Confederate flags. AR-15s.” Masked men in balaclavas abounded. This spring’s campus demonstrations come to mind. Anonymity cloaks the coward with strength.“One man had tied a noose around the neck of a brown-haired Barbie doll, dangling her from a pole.”Taking a page from his Charlottesville playbook, Donald Trump called the mob “good people” and urged Whitmer to “make a deal”. He tweeted that she should “give a little, and put out the fire”.Negotiate over the barrel of a gun. “That woman from Michigan,” he called her.In hindsight, all was prelude to January 6. Four years on, Trump still won’t rule out violence if he loses.True Gretch contains lighter notes, including an 18-song playlist. Not Ready to Make Nice by the Chicks is top. Other contributors include Aretha Franklin, Taylor Swift, Alanis Morissette, Guns N’ Roses, Eminem, Elton John and Prince.Think of it as jogging music. A good politician, Whitmer gives Motown and Michigan their due. Franklin and Eminem grew up in Detroit.Reminiscing about high school, Whitmer says she spent more time partying than studying. “I ran with a fast crowd,” she confesses. As a sophomore, she passed out drunk after a bout of exuberant tailgating.Whitmer also tells of hanging out, as governor, in a dive restaurant – and violating Covid social-distancing rules. Ostensibly regretting her sin, she mentions that Newsom of California, another ambitious Democratic governor, did the same thing, albeit at a pricier joint. Jab noted.Whitmer has been fortunate in her opponents. The US supreme court decision in Dobbs v Jackson, which removed the right to abortion, has proved a gift that keeps on giving.Tudor Dixon, Whitmer’s Republican challenger in 2022, spoke of the upside of a 14-year-old rape victim carrying the child to term.“The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Dixon told an interviewer.Whitmer won by double digits – and the Democrats flipped both houses of the state legislature. For the first time in 40 years, the party held a governing trifecta.The generational shift within Whitmer’s family crystalizes the cultural and political trajectory of the country as a whole. Teddy Roosevelt, once a Republican president, then a third-party challenger, is one of Whitmer’s heroes. She quotes from his “Man in the Arena” speech, at length.“Though these words were written more than a hundred years ago, they’re just as true today – except for two things,” she writes. “The ‘man’ may be a woman. And she may just be wearing fuchsia.”

      True Gretch: What I’ve Learned about Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Biden heads to Michigan to shore up support as calls to quit persist

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      Joe Biden was headed for the battleground state of Michigan on Friday, to campaign both for re-election and for his survival as the Democratic presidential nominee.In Washington, calls for the 81-year-old president to quit continued, while the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives said he had discussed the issue with Biden on Thursday, after Biden’s press conference following the Nato summit.In a letter to colleagues, Hakeem Jeffries of New York said discussions about Biden’s age and fitness for office had been “candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive”.“On behalf of the House Democratic caucus,” he said, “I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden.“That meeting occurred yesterday evening … I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward.”Biden’s response was not disclosed, nor details of Democratic “conclusions”. But as the letter was released, an 18th congressional Democrat said Biden should let someone else face Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.The 19th Democrat to say Biden should go, Mike Levin of California, was reported by Politico to have told the president so to his face on Friday, during a virtual meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus. Levin then stated his position publicly.Politico also quoted a “pro-Biden Democrat who attended the meeting” as saying the president “sounded very lucid, sharp, engaged”.There was further worrying news for Democrats when the New York Times reported that so long as Biden remains the nominee, major donors will put on hold “roughly $90m in pledged donations”.The Sunrise Movement also called for Biden to quit. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led climate-focused activist group, said she was “concerned Joe Biden isn’t in a position to mobilise young voters and win”.As Biden headed for Detroit, the capital remained abuzz. At the Nato summit on Thursday, Biden spoke assertively and showed his foreign policy experience but also made embarrassing slips, introducing Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine as “President Putin” and referring to Kamala Harris, his vice-president, as “Vice-President Trump”.Trump seized on that, posting on social media: “Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ press conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.’ Great job, Joe!”Biden had appeared to say: “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president [if] I think she’s not qualified to be president.”Online, Biden fired back, posting: “By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”Trump, 78 and facing questions about his own cognitive fitness, was convicted on 34 charges arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star. He faces 54 other criminal charges, concerning election subversion and retention of classified information, and was fined millions of dollars in civil cases over business fraud and defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Harris came to prominence as a prosecutor in San Francisco before becoming attorney general of California, a US senator and Biden’s running mate.Michigan is a swing state, choosing Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, its Black voters a key part of Biden’s support. The Oscar-winning actor Octavia Spencer was set to appear with Biden in Detroit on Friday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s campaign said he would target Project 2025, a policy plan led by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank. Trump has tried to disavow the project, which Democrats say shows his extremist agenda.There was good news for Biden on Friday: a poll showing him improving since the disastrous debate against Trump in Atlanta that pitched Democrats into crisis.“Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate,” wrote Domenico Montanaro of NPR, which carried out the poll with PBS and Marist. “He leads Trump 50%-48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump [leading] 43%-42%.”But Politico noted telling dissonance in responses to Biden’s Nato performance. One unnamed Biden aide said the president exceeded expectations and had some great lines. A Democratic aide said Biden had “lowered the bar … until it’s on the floor”.Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the dean of the Congressional Black caucus, told NBC Biden “sometimes mangles words and phrases but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering”.He added: “He has one of the best minds that I have ever been around … and so I would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man … and how he has run this country.“… The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative in this election, and let Joe Biden make his own decisions about his future.“If he decides to change his mind later on then we will respond to that. We have until 19 August to open our convention” in Chicago.Asked “Is this the same Joe Biden that we saw four years ago?”, Clyburn said: “No!”“I’m not the same Jim Clyburn that I was four years ago and in 10 days I’ll be 84. But I’m a bit wiser than I was before … It’s biblical. When I became a man I put away childish things. Joe Biden has put away childish things because he has become a man. His opponent [Trump] is still a child.”Biden, Clyburn said, “knows what a democracy is all about.” More