President Joe Biden holds a rally in the Sherman Middle School gym in Madison, Wisconsin on July 5, 2024 (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

President Joe Biden flew to Wisconsin Friday to shore up voter confidence in this critical swing state after a stumbling debate performance last week fueled speculation that he might drop out. He told a cheering crowd of hundreds of supporters packed into the Sherman Middle School gymnasium in Madison, “I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party.”

Reading fluidly and energetically from a teleprompter, he acknowledged that last week’s debate with former President Donald Trump “wasn’t my best performance.” He spoke directly to the doubts expressed by some elected officials and liberal pundits — including the The New York Times editorial board, which has urged him to quit the race and make way for a different Democratic nominee. Those calling for him to drop out are ignoring the will of the voters, he said, “who voted for me in primaries all across the nation.”

“Guess what, they’re trying to push me out of the race,” Biden told the diverse crowd packed into the gym as well as an overflow room (the campaign estimated total attendance at more than 1,000). “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race!”

“I’m not going to let one 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work,” he added, to raucous cheers and chants of “four more years!”

“There’s a lot of discussion about my age,” Biden said, joking “I know I look 40.” “I wasn’t too old to create over 50 million new jobs,” he said, segueing into a litany of his accomplishments, including expanding health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, reducing student debt, and putting the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. “Do you think I’m too old to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land?” he asked the crowd, to a resounding “No!” He got the same response as he asked if people believed he was too old to ban assault weapons, make billionaires pay higher taxes and to beat Donald Trump

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers took the stage just before Biden to give him a plug. “With the help of the American Rescue Plan Act we were able to rebuild Wisconsin’s economy from the ground up,” Evers said, crediting Biden with investments that created hundreds of thousands of jobs, replaced contaminated wells, expanded internet access and rebuilt infrastructure in the state.

“The thing about me and Joe,” Evers said, “we’re not flashy. Nor are we fancy. We’re not for political drama or fanfare. We put our heads down and do the work. We always try to do the right thing.”

Other Democrats, including Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway made the case that a second Trump term represents an existential threat and that reelecting Biden is essential. “I have to be honest with you, I’m afraid,” Rhodes Conway said. “The specter of dictatorship looms over America.”

“The only people with the power to stop Donald Trump are you,” Wikler told the crowd.

“Joe Biden took office amidst the wreckage of Donald Trump’s failed insurrection, an attempt to overthrow democracy in America on Jan. 6,” Wikler added, saying Biden “helped us to stabilize, helped us to refocus on rebuilding a country that works for working people.”

He praised Biden’s “patriotism, his decency, his empathy, his steely determination” and his ability to “get back up.” “And we know that he is asking us to get back up,” Wikler added, leading the crowd in a chant of “Get back up!”

Notably absent was Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is in a close race against Republican challenger Eric Hovde. The most recent Marquette University Law School poll shows Baldwin leading Hovde by a narrow margin. The same poll, released before the debate, showed Biden and Trump in a dead heat. Baldwin has deflected questions about whether she believes Biden should drop out of the race.

Olivia Saud, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who came to the rally at Sherman Middle School to see Biden in person, said she watched the debate and “I understand the concern.”

“I also understand the concern of Trump being president,” she said, adding, “I’m one of those people who subscribes to anything that’s blue I’m going to vote for at this point.”

Among her peers, Saud said, “I know a lot of students that are not really proud of how he handled Israel and Palestine. I also know that they feel he doesn’t really represent their beliefs and the policies they stand for. They feel he’s too old. But there are also people who will vote for him. It’s a mixed bag.”

Saud said she doesn’t know what Biden can do at this point to increase support among young voters. “A better debate performance — a little bit more on top of things — would have helped. I think with respect to Israel and Palestine it’s a little late now to fix things so people who are in that camp would support him.”

She had heard talk about Vice President Kamala Harris possibly replacing Biden, she said, but was not sure if Harris or another candidate would fare better than Biden with young voters.

Hernán Rodriguez, a recent UW graduate who now works full-time in higher education, came to the rally because “a goal of mine has always been to see a president live in person,” he said.

“I think at this point it’s very likely,” he’ll vote for Biden, he said. “I think it’s all doors open, because who knows what could happen in the next few months.”

Asked what he hoped to hear from the candidate, Rodriguez said, “I think hope is important. At this point you listen in on the national conversation, it’s rather bleak, at least from the left, in terms of how well he’s doing in the election, what’s to come, the implications if he loses. So really, I want that spark — that spark in the base, that spark from Biden. So hopefully he’ll spark some momentum and turn things around.”

Tanya Cornelius, a member of the Ojibwe nation who works in tribal affairs, was also open to hearing what Biden had to say. It meant a lot, she said, that Biden appointed the first Native American cabinet member in history, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and that his administration had done a lot of work to recognize tribal sovereignty and to uncover the dark history of the federally sponsored Native American boarding schools.

“Every Native American person you meet has some contact with those schools,” she said — because almost every Native family has been affected. “The idea was to annihilate the Indian population.”

“I’m a third-generation descendant of a survivor,” she said.? Growing up in Wisconsin, away from her Ojibwe family in Michigan, she lost her connection to her culture and language, she said. Now her children and grandchildren are trying to reclaim that connection.

Biden has been good on Native American issues, she said. “I saw no movement from the Trump administration on upholding tribal sovereignty.”

Should Biden stay in the race?

“I’m here to find out,” Cornelius said.

Jim Singer, an electrician and a member of IBEW Local 159, came to the rally to support Biden.

“I think everybody’s worried. I think he’ll come through,” Singer said of the debate. “It’s one bad night. I’m not going to judge his whole presidency based on one bad debate.”

Among his top concerns in the election, Singer said, are democracy, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and workers’ rights.

He agrees with the characterization of Biden as the most pro-labor president in recent history. “I’ve been in the trades 36 years, I’ve never seen work the way I’m seeing it now,” he said.

Singer said he thinks the large number of voters who tell pollsters they have less confidence in Biden than Trump on the economy are missing the big picture.

“I think the economy — people are so focused on the inflation. And while inflation is part of it, you have to look at the work situation,” he said. “There is so much work nationwide. I get it, the inflation is not good. That will come down. That will get under control. But right now, in my opinion, the economy is smoking.”

It does worry him, he added, that “there’s a faction of people that are pushing for him to step aside. I don’t think it’s a good move. I think if we throw all our resources and our support behind him, I think he’ll be fine.”

At the end of the rally, as Biden left the stage to the strain’s of the Tom Petty song “Won’t Back Down,” Singer was satisfied.

“I like it,” he said. “He’s fine. We’ll win.”

Biden stayed on stage as the rally ended to shake hands with the supporters arrayed behind him. Then he approached the mic one more time and the music stopped. “I won’t forget this,” he said. “God love ya.”

This story is republished from the Wisconsin Examiner, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.