President Joe Biden speaks at the 115th NAACP National Convention in Las Vegas on July 16.
Tom Brenner/Reuters
When President Joe Biden huddled with his two closest advisers on Saturday, the information they provided on the polling and where top Democratic officials stood laid out a “basically non-existent” path to victory, according to a person familiar with the matter.
There wasn’t any single poll number, wavering Democratic official or fundraiser presented in the meeting with his long-time aides Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti that pushed Biden toward his decision, the person said.
Instead, the information served to underscore that the path back to a viable campaign had been severely damaged by declining national and swing state poll numbers along with party defections that were likely to rapidly accelerate in the days ahead.
The information included polling and information gathered from outreach outside Biden’s inner circle.
Unlike 2015, when Biden wrote in his book “Promise me, Dad” that Donilon told the then-vice president he shouldn’t launch a 2016 campaign for president as he grieved the death of his son Beau, neither aide explicitly told Biden he should get out of the race, according to the person.
Biden made clear before the end of the meeting that he was planning to pull out of the race and asked his aides to start drafting the letter he posted Sunday afternoon and prepare the outreach and operation plans for the rollout.
He confirmed that decision on Sunday morning and, with Ricchetti by his side, started making calls to key players outside of his close-knit group of senior-most aides and family members, the person said, before expanding the circle to his senior staff a minute before the news was posted on his X account.
Biden and Ricchetti have been on the phone in his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home making calls to top lawmakers, governors, and officials in the hours since the announcement.
