Washington.- Amid a barrage of questions from Democrats about whether President Biden should or will remain their party’s presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump has remained unusually quiet on the issue in public.
Trump, not one to shy away from sharing his opinion, has not been entirely silent since last week’s debate, granting a handful of radio interviews and maintaining a steady stream of posts and videos on his social media platform, Truth Social. But Mr. Trump has largely sat back and allowed the Democratic Party to dominate the debate over Mr. Biden’s political future, in a sign of his preferred opponent.
After months of relentlessly attacking Mr. Biden as too physically and mentally weak to lead the country, the former president has been content to let news coverage of Democrats doubting their party’s leader take hold, according to two advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.
Her relative lack of public comment on the issue also reflects to some extent her desire to keep Biden in the race and her confidence that he can easily beat the president in November, one of the advisers said.
A New York Times-Siena College poll conducted after the debate and released Wednesday suggests some Republican voters agree: 28% of them said they thought Biden should remain the Democratic nominee, up from 21% in a poll conducted before the debate.
On Monday, Trump publicly rejected the idea of the president being replaced as the Democratic nominee.
“If you listen to the professionals who do this, they’ll tell you it’s very difficult for anyone else to get into the race,” Trump said in an interview with John Reid, a Virginia radio host.
And in an echo of a talking point Biden’s Democratic allies have long made to argue that he is best positioned to beat the former president, Trump has also argued that polls show “Biden is doing better than the people they’re talking about using to replace him.”
The day after the debate, he argued at a rally in Virginia that Biden performed better in head-to-head matchups against him than Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he said he would “be happy” to run against, or Michelle Obama, the former first lady.
Two polls released on Tuesday deflated that claim somewhat: A CNN poll found Ms. Harris leading Mr. Biden by two percentage points in a hypothetical race against Mr. Trump, though he still outpaced her. And an Ipsos/Reuters poll found Ms. Obama — a potential long shot for Democrats given that she has repeatedly said she has no interest in running — leading Mr. Trump 50% to 39% in a hypothetical matchup.
Trump appeared to take delight in mocking his rival in an unedited video first reported by The Daily Beast on Wednesday and later shared by Trump. It’s unclear who originally recorded the video or what day it was recorded. While golfing at his New Jersey property, Trump referred to Biden as “that old pile of shit” and suggested he would drop out of the race, according to video of his remarks.
If Biden were to step aside, Trump would lose two lines of attack that have been central to his campaign. He has spent years attacking Biden as a “sleeper,” posting videos of his stumbles, mocking his speech and doing cartoonish imitations of him — attacks he could not easily deploy against another opponent.
And over the past few months, Trump has sought to appeal to undecided voters by directly comparing his tenure to Biden’s, often in misleading terms. That message would be hampered if another candidate replaced Biden.
A new opponent could pose new political challenges. Trump could face a younger opponent who could appeal to voters concerned about the age of both candidates and looking for fresh alternatives to two men who have each had the chance of one term in the White House.
“I don’t think anyone in the Trump campaign has ever said they want Biden off the ticket,” said Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump adviser who is now an adviser to the Republican Party’s nominating convention. He added that the matchup of “two candidates that America knows very well and has a track record to compare to is very, very much in our favor.”
The Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative advocacy group, has also been exploring potential legal challenges that could make it harder to replace Biden on the ballot in some states if he were to drop out.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Oversight Project, said the group was studying key states such as Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin, where laws could make it difficult to get another Democrat on the ballot.
In a statement Wednesday, Trump’s two campaign managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, expressed confidence that Trump could “beat any Democrat” in November. They accused Democrats now turning against Biden of being hypocrites, saying “every single one of them has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies for the past four years.”
There have been signs that some in Trump’s orbit are preparing more seriously for the possibility, however distant, of a showdown against another Democratic candidate this fall. The Trump campaign and its Republican allies have stepped up attacks on Harris, who has long been a target of the right.
In their statement Wednesday, Trump’s campaign managers called her “Kamala Harris, the cackling co-pilot,” mocking her mannerisms and linking her directly to Biden’s policies. During the debate, the campaign aired an ad suggesting Biden was incapable of leading the country for a second term and warning that Harris was waiting to take over.
On Tuesday morning, Make America Great Again Inc., the main super PAC supporting Trump’s presidential campaign, sent out a list of attacks against Harris that essentially argued she would be no better than Biden, especially on immigration, an issue Trump has made central to his campaign.
On Wednesday, the House Republican campaign committee announced a new digital ad linking Harris to Biden’s border policies. “Vote Republican. Stop Kamala,” reads a caption at the end of the ad.
“Any good campaign takes into account all possible contingencies,” Lewandowski said. “The campaign strategy is not changing, but it would be a dereliction of duty not to be prepared in case Joe Biden were to drop out of the race.”
In the video recorded at his golf club, Trump was already looking beyond Biden to Harris as his likely opponent.
“That means we have Kamala,” Mr. Trump said. “I think she’s going to be better. She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close Trump ally, issued a warning of sorts on social media about how the 2024 race could change if Harris were to become the nominee.
“I think the Trump campaign realizes that the 2024 race could very soon shift dramatically from Biden’s capabilities to a fight for the heart and soul of the country,” Graham wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon.
And if that scenario played out, Mr. Graham added, Republicans would need to “leverage President Trump’s ability to expand the demographic reach of our party in 2024.”
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