By Julie Bosman

June 28, 2024, 8:22 p.m. ET

Mary Riche, 76, is a devoted member of the Democratic Party faithful. She isn’t an elected politician or a highly paid party operative, but a loyal part of the rank and file who has supported state and national Democrats since the 1970s, hosted fund-raisers in her Iowa home and enthusiastically knocked on doors for candidates.

On Thursday night during the first presidential debate of the campaign, she was watching television and texting with her “posse,” a close circle of Democratic friends.

“Finally, I just posted the crying emoji,” she said in a coffee shop in Des Moines on Friday. “I was embarrassed that my candidate was appearing as if he was incoherent. It was very difficult, painful, to watch.”

Millions of Americans watched the debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump and saw a faltering performance by Mr. Biden, who appeared aged and frail, spoke with a soft, raspy voice that his aides attributed to a cold, and at times stumbled or trailed off during his answers.

The most devoted, longstanding members of the Democratic Party were perhaps the most stunned and shaken. In dozens of interviews, Democrats across the country who volunteer or work on the local or state level said they were unnerved — or worse — by Mr. Biden’s debate performance.

For these party faithful — whose role it is to urge neighbors to vote, to knock doors and to work hours at phone banks — the reactions ranged from faint defenses to complete despair. Many said they felt frustrated at the national Democratic Party for pushing Mr. Biden, 81, as the nominee without scrutinizing or divulging his limits. Others said they would forge ahead with campaigning for Mr. Biden, since they had no interest in throwing their support to Mr. Trump.

Many were simply wondering: What do we do now?

For Dermot Delude-Dix, a local Democratic committee person from South Philadelphia, the debate was an “unqualified disaster.”

“It was like watching my worst misgivings realized on the screen in terms of Biden’s performance,” he said.

Mr. Delude-Dix, 37, who works as a staff lawyer at a labor union, said that it would now be even more challenging to campaign for the president, who was already losing support among people in Mr. Delude-Dix’s circles over his response to the war in Gaza.

“I feel like his insistence on running for re-election just makes our job, honestly, harder in terms of winning the election, getting out the vote in Philadelphia, and winning Pennsylvania,” he said.

Not all Democrats were despondent. Some said they were disappointed or mildly frustrated, wishing that Mr. Biden had been more energetic, steady and forceful. The most important thing, several people said, is to focus on the larger issues and the stark policy differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.

Jill Hopman, chair of the New Hanover County Democrats in North Carolina, was adamant that the debate changed nothing.

“One debate does not affect a voter’s life, but policies do. And I think his policies speak for themselves,” she said.

Saturday is the New Hanover Democrats’ kickoff canvassing event. If Ms. Hopman runs into voters who are nervous about Mr. Biden’s debate performance or age, she said, she will “ask them to think about their lives. In what way were they better off or not.”

Still, many of the Democratic faithful said they were worried — about Mr. Biden’s candidacy but also about their own work to make the case for him in the months ahead.

Jeffrey Kwong, the president of the Harvey Milk L.G.B.T.Q. Democratic Club, a Democratic club in San Francisco with more than 1,000 members, said that during the last election cycle, the group took 300 volunteers to Nevada on weekend buses and made thousands of calls to Georgia and other swing states with the Democratic National Committee.

But it is harder and harder to draw volunteers to where help is needed in battleground states, Mr. Kwong said, and Mr. Biden’s debate imperils an already weak volunteer base.

“We do the swing state mobilization, because we know they need us in the West Coast to do that,” he said. “Members aren’t excited to do anything, lift a finger, for Biden. That’s what concerns us.”

Some Democrats who watched on Thursday and concluded that Mr. Biden should remove himself from the presidential race said they felt let down by the national party, and left to pick up the pieces among fellow Democrats in their neighborhoods and counties.

“They should have known all this in advance,” said Cindy Purvis, 72, the treasurer of the Erie County, Pa., Democratic Committee, who questioned how much national party leaders knew about Mr. Biden’s health before the debate. She respected Mr. Biden, she said, praising his term in office, the issues he has championed and the people he has appointed.

But, she said, “he’s not going to get the vote after last night.”

Kristina Beverlin, a longtime Democratic Party activist now organizing in Washington State, said that if the party leadership sticks with Mr. Biden, she expects he will lose.

She already had deep concerns about some of his actions as president, particularly the handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Now, combined with his debate showing, she said, she will not involve herself in campaigning on his behalf, instead focusing on Democrats running in congressional races.

“The moment he got onstage, I was like, ‘This is not going to be good,’” Ms. Beverlin said. “He looked like someone who was lost and confused.”

She is hopeful that the party will move to change the top of the ticket. And given the tone of text message groups among party activists, she said, she believes there is a chance it could be done — if party leaders are actually willing to consider it.

Lost in the worries over Mr. Biden’s age and performance, several Democrats said, was what Mr. Trump said on Thursday night.

“Trump just told blatant, outright, extravagant lies, and President Biden just wasn’t able to counteract them, which I thought was extremely important to do,” said Joni Novotnak, 67, who since leaving the Republican Party in 2016 has thrown herself into Democratic causes and campaigns in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“Last night was a rough night for everyone,” said Jayden D’Onofrio, 19, an organizer for Florida Future Leaders, a group for college and high school Democrats. “I think the most important thing is that President Trump continually showcased who he was, which was a compulsive liar.”

Where was the substance in the debate, some frustrated Democrats asked, citing a frivolous back-and-forth about the candidates’ physiques and golf games.

“As a human being, when they started arguing about their golf scores, it gave me major worries about their maturity and their ability to run our country,” said Donald Wilhite, 33, a Democrat and high school teacher from Hyattsville, Md.

On Friday, when Mr. Biden took the stage for a rally with a far more vigorous tone than the evening before, some optimism had begun to trickle through party circles.

“If he can’t project his voice to the same sound level as Donald Trump, it is what it is,” said Mark Ramos, chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. “But afterwards, at that rally that he had, I heard a strong, confident voice, and I heard a strong, confident man who has an incredible record.”

Kris Sadur of Door County, Wis., the board chair of the Democratic Party in this closely divided county in a swing state, said she was ready to get back out and keep door knocking for Mr. Biden.

“It certainly had its cringe moments,” Ms. Sadur said of the debate, as she prepared for campaigning at a Pride fair and Fourth of July parade. Among devoted Democrats in her corner of Wisconsin, she said, “I hear people saying that yes, he may not have done the best we’ve seen him do in the past. I hear nobody saying, ‘Replace Joe Biden.’”

Ted Moynihan, 39, an organic farmer from Pipersville, Pa., said he could not even bring himself to watch the debate. He was not happy with Mr. Biden, he acknowledged, but said that nothing he saw in the post-debate coverage would change his plan to vote for him.

“As many issues as I have with Biden, there’s still no real choice in the matter,” he said. “It’s democracy or fascism, and I’ll vote for democracy this time.”

Reporting was contributed by Eric Adelson, Mike Baker, Valerie Boey Ramsey, Christian Boone, Oralandar Brand-Williams, Emily Cataneo, Bob Chiarito, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Lauryn Higgins, Shawn Hubler, Jon Hurdle, Ann Hinga Klein, Corina Knoll, Ernesto Londoño, Clyde McGrady, Eduardo Medina, Campbell Robertson, Jenna Russell, Peder Schaefer, Jonathan Wolfe, Joel Wolfram and Kate Zernike.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5547433&forum_id=2...id#47790723)