Biden allies try to calm anxious Dems, stress there is no 2024 backup plan ahead of prez’s 81st birthday: report

President Biden’s allies are trying to assuage key Democrats weary about his chances at reelection in 2024 — and impress upon them that there is no clear alternative, according to a revealing new report.

Biden — who turns 81 on Monday — has been facing unease within his own party, and from voters, about his age and ability to win in what appears to be a likely matchup against former President Donald Trump.

“The bad news is that everybody is wetting the bed inside of Biden world,” one fundraiser told the Washington Post in an exposé published Sunday.

The article gives a damning behind-the-scenes look at the jitters some Democrats have been feeling as a raft of recent polling has shown gaffe-prone Biden down against Trump, 77, in the general election, and efforts from the president’s allies to alleviate those concerns.

Already the oldest US president in history, Biden would be 86 years old by the conclusion of a second hypothetical term.

At a private power conference in late September, hosted by Ari Emanuel, brother of Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, the angst was on full display, with one person in attendance at the off-the-record event worrying aloud about Biden being in serious jeopardy of losing the election and asking about the Democrats’ backup plan, the report said.

Former Biden chief of staff and staunch ally Ron Klain quickly fired back underscoring that there was no Plan B in place and that the incumbent was a formidable nominee, according to the Washington Post.

Ron Klain has been one of President Biden’s most vocal defenders in the public domain.AFP via Getty Images

Attendees were reportedly splintered over Klain’s remarks, with some miffed by the lack of a backup plan and others grateful for his defense of Biden.

“It’s really an unhappy confluence of Biden world donors’ cocktail party friends saying ‘Can’t you get him not to run,’ which is stupid and absurd if you know Joe Biden,” the fundraiser told the newspaper.

Nearly six weeks after Emanuel’s private conference, Biden’s campaign officials trekked to Chicago for a private event where some attendees voiced frustrations that former President Barack Obama hadn’t done more to elevate his former VP, the report said.

“The takeaway of the weekend was not, ‘Hey team, we’re got to get the band back together to help Biden out,’” one attendee told the paper.

Donald Trump has been beating Joe Biden in a flurry of recent polls.Getty Images

“If this a supposedly existential threat and democracy is so challenged, then why aren’t you being more overt about it?”

Not all the Democratic unease about Biden has been relegated to backstage grumbling.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) launched a long shot primary challenge against Biden last month, making hay about the incumbent’s viabilities.

And Democratic luminary David Axelrod, who helped pioneer Obama’s breakthrough 2008 presidential victory, has rankled Biden world with his public misgivings.

Dean Phillips is challenging President Biden for the party nod.REUTERS

“The@POTUS is justly proud of his accomplishments. Trump is a dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, norms, laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying. But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” he wrote on X earlier this month.

“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”

Axeldrod’s remarks came against the backdrop of a spate of polling showing Trump ahead of Biden in five of six battleground states.

He later clarified that he was not calling on Biden to drop out of the running.

Earlier this month, Biden allies took a big victory lap following Democratic wins in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and elsewhere in the off-year 2023 elections.

They contended that those elections proved critics in the party had been unnecessarily hyperventilating and too caught up on current polls for an election just shy of a year away.

“Time and again, Biden beats expectations. Happened in 2020, happened in 2022, happened on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters after the off-year victories.

“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden followed by an election day with historic victories,” he went on. 

Still, victories in 2022 and 2023 have failed to completely subdue Democratic anxiety about Biden’s chances in the general election.

Biden is trailing Trump by 1.6 percentage points nationally in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate.

Joe Biden is set to turn 81 on Monday.AP

Trump was also projected to dispatch Biden in the Electoral College, according to a Stack Data Strategy survey of 15,000 people.

However, with the election just under a year a way, there are many unknowns.

Trump has 91 criminal counts pending against him and is set to head to trial in March in the federal case in Washington DC charging him with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The Post contacted the Biden campaign for comment Sunday.

While there aren’t any heavyweight Democrats challenging Biden for the nod, some have cultivated presidential buzz, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom has embarked on tours of red states and ad blitz to champion progressive causes in conservative strongholds.

He is set to square off with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a debate later this month, with his team recently cutting an ad knocking the aspiring 2024 Republican presidential nominee on abortion.

Newsom has endorsed Biden and insisted he won’t vie for the presidency in 2024.