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As the inevitable was going to happen. Really from all of the reporting it seems like it was a matter of when not if and the when was predicated on President Biden accepting the reality that not only could he not win, his campaign would drag down the senate and the house.

Politico reported that the Biden campaign itself had not done any internal polling for 1.5-2 weeks after that debate even as house and senate candidates were seeing their internal polling cratering and their donations drying up. The article indicated it was only early in week 3 after the debate did they finally do the polling and it was only later that week that they showed those numbers to President Biden.

The linked article has a good synopsis

"Steve Ricchetti, who’s been with Biden since his days in the Senate, drove to see the president at his house on the Delaware shore on Friday. Mike Donilon arrived on Saturday. The two men, both of whom had been by Biden’s side during key decisions about whether to seek the presidency in 2016 and 2020, sat at a distance from the president, still testing positive for Covid, and presented damning new information in a meeting that would hasten the end of Biden’s political career.

In addition to presenting new concerns from lawmakers and updates on a fundraising operation that had slowed considerably, they carried the campaign’s own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone, according to five people familiar with the matter, who, like others interviewed for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Biden asked several questions during the exchange....

...When the campaign commissioned new battleground polling over the last week, it was the first time they had done surveys in some key states in more than two months, according to two people familiar with the surveys. And the numbers were grim, showing Biden not just trailing in all six critical swing states but collapsing in places like Virginia and New Mexico where Democrats had not planned on needing to spend massive resources to win.

In the end I think the COVID was what prompted President Biden to finally begin accepting that this just couldn't go on. He is a healthy 81 year old man but the job of running for president is grueling especially combined with the job of being the president. Even in his recent appearances, where he does seem more rested, I can tell he has lost a step.

It annoys me that the people who pressured him privately are being dragged as back stabbing traitors while he is being hailed a hero. They all did what they needed to do to put country over party, not just President Biden. I especially loathe the vitriol aimed at Speaker Emerita Pelosi because misogyny is definitely playing a part in it. If it was Bill Clinton who had done the hard thing and confronted him I don't see the reactions towards him being near as harsh. It would be all, well if someone knows how to win an election it is Clinton.

It also annoying me because the bottom line is none of that would have had to happen had President Biden been realistic in 2023 about his abilities for running the country and a campaign at the same time. Other party leaders hold some responsibility too for not shutting him down before he decided to run for this cycle but that does not absolve him of it.