Top advisers to Donald Trump have scripted a Republican National Convention focused on immigration, inflation and other issues where he has a political advantage over President Biden and his party, according to Republicans familiar with the planning. The intent is to soften his image and sidestep his false claims of a stolen election, views on the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and the GOP debate over abortion, which millions of Americans have recoiled from as he seeks a return to the White House.

But the four-day convention in Milwaukee starting Monday will also showcase a party more inseparable than ever from Trump’s MAGA movement, elements of his polarizing vision of a second term, and a party apparatus that has squelched almost all dissent. State delegations will be full of activists who have championed his assertion that he was indicted in four cases for political reasons; and in some instances, were themselves charged with illegally trying to overturn his 2020 loss. Trump’s dark message is reflected in promotional materials for the gathering that call American cities “hollowed out, dystopian nightmares.”

The lineup of speakers is filled with everyday Americans, celebrities, politicians and others, according to the Republicans familiar with the planning, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private arrangements. But organizers did not giving speaking slots to Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even though Trump often praises them and sometimes kicks off his rallies with their jailhouse rendition of the national anthem. The convention will vote on a party platform that softens the GOP’s official stance on abortion, despite social conservatives’ protests.

The quadrennial convention will test Republicans’ ability to tailor their pitch to a general election audience at a moment of upheaval in the presidential race. Biden has faced calls from some prominent Democrats to end his campaign after a disastrous debate where he appeared to repeatedly lose his train of thought. Trump was the first former president to become a felon after his conviction in a hush money case earlier this year and is navigating a thicket of other charges.

“That’s one of the things we see in some polls, that some people will vote for Biden even if they think he’s doing a bad job. We want to give the American people something to vote for,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley in an interview. “We have a better messenger, and we have a better message. We hope to showcase that next week.”

Whatley said the party did not plan to talk about Jan. 6, 2021, or any of the party’s “election integrity” initiatives at the convention. Abortion is not expected to be a major topic either, party leaders said.

Instead of voters seeing a candidate convicted of 34 felony counts who owes almost $500 million in New York courts due to civil findings of business fraud and liability for sexual assault, they hope to present a jocular family man by highlighting almost all of his children. Instead of one accused of trying to overturn an election, taking classified materials illegally and obstructing an investigation to return them, they are hoping to highlight speakers who cast him as stronger than Biden on national security.

At least, that’s the plan. Trump is famously unpredictable, and with thousands of delegates and activists converging from around the country, conventions don’t always proceed on-script.

“The GOP is unified in its opposition to Joe Biden, but it’s not all peaches and cream when it comes to excitement about Donald Trump,” said Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas who was one of Trump’s most critical opponents in the primary. The question going into the convention, he said, is whether the message can resonate with independent voters as well as motivate Republicans.

Some of the speakers will include a New York woman whose police officer husband was killed, people who say they were victims of crimes allegedly committed by migrants, and border residents who say their communities have been overrun. They will also feature several supporters of color who will talk about the challenges they have faced from rising costs. Others slated to speak include the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, where Trump visited after a train derailment — a visit advisers believe was a key point in his campaign.

Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump in the primary and attracted many centrist voters, will not attend the convention and was not invited, according to spokeswoman Chaney Denton, though she endorsed Trump and encouraged her delegates to support him next week. Nachama Soloveichik, Haley’s former communications director, said that if Trump wants to appeal to reluctant Haley voters, the convention should not dwell on the calls for “retribution” that helped Trump rev up his base and dominate the primary.

“Coming in and reassuring people that there’s going to be someone in charge who’s focused on the things that people care about — the economy, inflation, crime, fixing the border, not court cases, not indictments, not revenge, not the drama but just the regular bread-and-butter issues that people care about — I think that will go a long way,” Soloveichik said.

Asked about not inviting Haley, Whatley referred to Haley’s comments that encouraged her delegates to support Trump.

Above all, the convention is meant to promote Trump. His takeover of the party is evident in the policies, people and ideas the gathering will champion, including a focus on border security following his intense criticism of undocumented immigrants that has alarmed some immigrant-rights activists.

“What is our party about right now but electing President Trump?” asked Tamara Scott, one of two Republican committee members from Iowa, defending the singular focus even as she wished the newly drafted platform — “terrific for a campaign document” — spoke more to “timeless” beliefs.

The convention is crafted, in many ways, to reach beyond the base. A prime-time speaking slot will go to the president of the Teamsters union, which usually backs Democrats, people familiar with the planning said, and the program will try to show a different side of Trump through former employees and union workers who know him from New York. Two other smaller union leaders from New York are also expected to speak.

The lineup includes prominent politicians such as Mike Pompeo and former Trump challenger Ron DeSantis, but also pop-culture surrogates like Amber Rose, a celebrity model who recently gave Trump a surprise endorsement.

Other expected speakers include Franklin Graham and Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White.

Steve Witkoff, a business executive and friend of Trump’s will talk about why he likes the former president, and his son will speak as well, people familiar with the details said. Other donors on the schedule include Diane Hendricks and David Sacks, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Organizers considered featuring Elon Musk but decided against it, an official with knowledge of the plan said. There have been discussions of bringing other celebrities as well such as Mario Andretti and Mariano Rivera.

A number of lawmakers who asked to speak at the convention were told no because planners wanted fewer politicians and more “average people,” people familiar with the planning said.

“We are putting a very significant focus on everyday Americans. We usually have 60 to 65 speakers at one of these things. We’re going to have over 100, with many everyday Americans from all walks of life, all across the country,” Whatley said.

Trump has in some ways tried to distance himself from some hard-line elements of the party in the run-up to the convention. Multiple times this month, he has disavowed a conservative policy initiative called Project 2025 on social media, writing that he has “no idea who is behind it,” even though its architects include former Trump administration officials who are still in his orbit. Trump also approved a pared-down party platform that frames abortion as an issue for states to regulate, rebuffing some calls on the right for a national ban.

Some participants said the document was developed in a way that stifled dissent — with little time for committee members to digest the draft and no opportunity to make amendments, according to member Gayle Ruzicka. She called it a “railroad job.”

Danielle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said the party spoke to delegates and “built consensus” before putting forward a draft that Trump personally reviewed and edited. “The president is the leader of the party and he has built unity because of his winning record,” she said.

While Trump’s advisers hope to minimize talk about abortion, Democrats are sure to keep highlighting Trump’s pivotal role in overturning Roe v. Wade, and the convention next week will be full of activists like Ruzicka who feel strongly about the issue.

“I would love to see them fix it at the convention,” Ruzicka said of the draft platform’s language on abortion.

No matter the programming, themes that alienate moderate voters will be hard to escape. Democrats will also be descending on Milwaukee, relying on some prominent elected officials to rebut what the Democratic National Committee has called Trump’s “dangerous extremism.”

Delegates to the convention — selected at the state level — include many proponents of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

Anthony Kern, a state senator from Arizona who is running for Congress, was chosen as a delegate from Arizona shortly after he was charged with illegally trying to deliver Arizona’s electoral votes to Trump rather than to Biden, the winner.

Kern, who defended his actions as lawful, said in an interview that he does not expect much talk about prosecutions of Trump and Trump’s allies at the convention, even though that has been a central theme of Trump’s bid for a second term. “We don’t need to keep talking about it — the media keeps talking about it,” he said. “And we’re going to focus on inflation and shutting our southern border down and ensuring our Second Amendment rights are still in place.”

He did note, however, that he has been selling T-shirts and mugs that fundraise off his indictment. “Just like President Trump,” he said.

Isaac Arnsdorf and Dylan Wells contributed to this report.

President Biden told reporters Thursday that unless his team comes to him with an unequivocal and blunt message — “There’s no way you can win” — he has no plans to reconsider his decision to stay in the presidential race.

But following his halting and politically damaging debate performance just over two weeks ago, there are growing Democratic fears that Biden’s path to victory in November has become significantly narrower, giving him almost no margin for error.

Former president Donald Trump, by contrast, now faces a potentially expanded electoral map, giving him multiple possible routes to victory and more wiggle room.

Despite national polls that show only modest slippage for Biden since his June 27 debate debut, his road to the necessary 270 electoral votes through key battlegrounds has further contracted. This is especially true in Sun Belt states such as Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — which Biden won in 2020 — as well as in North Carolina, which he lost by just 1.3 points four years ago and which his campaign had hoped to put back into play.

“The map is a narrower path to 270 for Biden, and a wider one — with more cushion — for Trump,” said Amy Walter, editor in chief of the Cook Political Report. “Even before the debate, the path for Biden was getting narrower. … The whole point of the debate for Biden was he was on his heels and needed to go on offense and change the narrative and momentum and math with this debate, and that’s obviously not where we are.”

“And that,” Walter said, “is why there is such panic among Democrats, because there is literally no cushion.”

A memo that top Biden campaign staffers sent to supporters Thursday argued that the president has “multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes, with a focus on the Blue Wall states” — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If those are the only swing states he wins, Biden also needs to win the congressional district in Omaha to hold on to the White House.

These states are “the clearest pathway to that aim, but we also believe that the Sun Belt States are not out of reach,” the memo continued.

Democrats and Republicans alike both privately and publicly say that — for now, at least — they believe the Sun Belt is out of reach, meaning Biden would have to hold Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to have any chance of returning to the White House.

In 2020, he flipped all three states into the Democratic column from 2016, winning them all by a narrow margin.

The panic among Democrats was sparked by the first presidential debate last month. Biden struggled to complete sentences, often seemed confused when answering questions and largely failed to challenge Trump on his agenda. Biden aides had hoped the debate would mark a turning point in the election and help Biden regain support among key constituents that have faded away during his presidency.

Instead, the debate turned into a political disaster, leading nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers to privately or publicly call on him to step aside as of Friday amid fears he will lose to Trump in November. Biden’s performance has convulsed the Democratic Party as politicians, strategists, donors and voters engage in anguished debate over whether Vice President Harris would pose a more formidable challenge to Trump.

Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who now works for former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, said that when Democrats can play in traditionally red states, that means they are “in good shape” — but right now, he thinks the only three truly competitive states are the Blue Wall.

“There is no other path,” Wolfson said. “It is more likely we lose a blue state than win a red state. It is more likely we lose New Hampshire or New Mexico than we win Arizona or Nevada. The map is bad. It has really constricted.”

Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio was more blunt, saying that after the debate, his team was “tracking as many as 322 electoral votes.”

“At this juncture, I stopped counting at 25 different paths to 270,” said Fabrizio, who added that the Trump campaign views Georgia and Arizona as two pivotal states.

The Biden campaign resisted the idea that the president’s paths to victory have shrunk and said that while the three Blue Wall states may currently represent the strongest route to 270, it is hardly the only one.

“The reality is that we do have multiple pathways and we’ve always had multiple pathways to victory in this race,” said Dan Kanninen, Biden’s battleground states director.

Kanninen said that when the truly up-for-grabs voters start paying attention closer to November, the “political gravity” of what is at stake will become “undeniable” and the contrast between Biden and Trump will benefit Biden.

“It’s not that Trump has gained support,” he said. “It’s that we have some work to do to shore up our own support. And we have a plan to do it.”

The Biden campaign pointed to a $50 million media blitz announced the first week of July in battleground states — a group that includes not only the Blue Wall but also Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina — as well as its robust on-the-ground presence as signs that it is ceding no states to Trump.

In Georgia, the Biden campaign has more than 120 staffers working in 16 field offices throughout the state, with eight more offices set to open next week. And in North Carolina, the Biden campaign has 20 campaign offices and more than 100 staffers — a number it plans to double by the end of the month.

The Washington Post’s presidential polling average right now shows that Trump leads Biden in six of the seven battleground states that are most likely to determine the election. In the Blue Wall states, the polls are so close that the race remains within the margin of error. But in the Sun Belt states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina — Trump’s advantage is more significant: He leads Biden by six points in Georgia and by five points in the other three.

Republican strategists working for independent groups supporting Trump, who have their own internal polling, have not yet declared victory.

“The only number that has significantly moved outside the margin of error was the too-old ‘Grandpa’ question,” said Dave Carney, the strategist for Preserve America, a pro-Trump super PAC funded by Las Vegas Sands owner Miriam Adelson that plans to start spending in the Blue Wall states in late July. He added that Trump was ahead, though inside the margin of error, in those states.

MAGA Inc., another major advertiser for Trump, announced Friday that it was canceling reservations in Georgia to add money to Arizona — a state Biden flipped to Democrats in 2020 — where some research showed recent Biden gains.

“There may be chaos in D.C., but there’s still a race to run,” said a senior official at the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal data. “Arizona is a state we have watched closely, and recent internal polling has led to a shift in resources. The floor hasn’t yet fallen out for Biden, but a couple sticks of dynamite strapped to the floor boards should change that.”

Among Democrats, there is also some private consternation that traditionally blue states like Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia may now be in play — or may at least represent states where Democrats have to allocate resources playing defense.

“In all fairness, I put Minnesota and Virginia on the map back in May,” Fabrizio said, adding that the Trump campaign views them as true “battleground states” rather than reaches.

The Democratic Party chairs in Minnesota and New Hampshire said this week that they expect their states to be tight, single-digit races, though they were not yet detecting any sharp polling movement since the debate.

“Trump is a trophy collector — he collects trophy properties and trophy wives,” said Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is the name used by that state’s party. “There is no bigger trophy than taking Minnesota.”

Independent groups supporting Biden have begun conversations about revisiting their own advertising plans in southern states, though no decisions have been made because of doubts over whom the nominee will be and how he or she will fare in polls, according to people familiar with the conversations. The two biggest groups running ads backing Biden — Future Forward and American Bridge — have not been on the air in recent weeks.

“The polling is obviously not what we hoped for,” said former Nevada governor Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, who narrowly lost his reelection race in 2022. “The debate was not what we hoped for, but it’s still four months away.”

He added: “We need a change in narrative to Donald Trump and his lies.”

Some Democrats remain hopeful that the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday in Milwaukee, will provide a reset and refocus the nation on Trump, his policy agenda and his legal challenges. But Biden is slated to sit for a prime-time interview with NBC News on Monday and may participate in additional interviews later in the week, opening new opportunities for critics to seize on any mistakes.

Nancy Zdunkewicz, a Democratic pollster and founder of Z to A Research, has told fellow Democrats that Biden is no longer safe in any state he won by 10 points or less four years ago.

“My back-of-hand math is: If we’re worried about seats or districts or states that Biden carried by nine, 10, 11, 12 points, and he’s running neck-and-neck with Trump — or even a couple of points behind — that’s pretty bad,” Zdunkewicz said. “That means we can’t count on them, and that’s what’s freaking out all of these members.”

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll this week shows Biden performing worse with key Democratic groups — young voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters — than he did four years ago. Among registered voters ages 18 to 29, Biden leads Trump 47 percent to 41 percent — far smaller than his 24-point advantage in 2020 exit polls and comparable sources. Among Black registered voters, Biden leads Trump 79 percent to 15 percent — a slight drop from the Black voters who favored Biden 87-12 in exit polls. And among Hispanic voters, Biden leads Trump 49 percent to 42 percent — again far smaller than his 33-point advantage in 2020.

Despite those drop-offs, Biden nonetheless remained tied with Trump in the Post-ABC-Ipsos poll, and the president outperformed his 2020 support among White voters, men and people ages 65 and older.

Many Democrats agree that Biden did not suddenly plummet in the polls following the debate. But they worry that the event did not serve its intended purpose — to transform the race into a referendum on the former president rather than the current one — and now say Biden has even more ground to recover if he hopes to pull ahead of Trump by Election Day on Nov. 5.

“I don’t think the debate changed anything, but the whole point of the debate was to change everything,” said a Democratic strategist currently working on several House and Senate races. “We were losing and we had to shift the conversation, and instead we shifted the conversation onto the wrong subject.”

A year ago, Doug Sosnik, who was former president Bill Clinton’s political director in the White House, said he assessed Trump had a “marginal advantage” over Biden in reaching 270 electoral votes. As states in the Sun Belt have drifted away from Biden, Sosnik’s outlook for Biden has become more pessimistic.

“If you’re looking at this clear-eyed, it’s hard to not look at where the race stands and think Trump has a pretty significant advantage,” he said.

Zac Petkanas, president of Petkanas Strategies who ran rapid-response operations for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, acknowledged that the contest is shaping up to be “tough, competitive, and hard-fought” and that “Donald Trump could win and Joe Biden could win.” But he said that four months from Election Day is far too early to draw any meaningful conclusions.

“I don’t buy the idea that certain battleground states are off the table in July,” he said. “The freakout is that we have a competitive race on our hands, and that’s the state of play in July.”

Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report.

DETROIT — President Biden, turning up the volume on his case for another term, delivered his most forceful defense yet of his candidacy in a fiery rally here Friday, charging that Republican Donald Trump was receiving a “free pass” and unspooling a list of factors he said rendered Trump unfit to serve as president again.

Before a crowd of more than 2,000 enthusiastic supporters chanting “Don’t you quit” and “We’ve got your back,” Biden accused journalists and pundits of fixating on his verbal slip-ups while ignoring Trump’s criminal conviction and the accusations of sexual assault and rape against him.

“Mr. Trump raped her,” Biden, emphasizing the word “raped” as he read from a judge’s ruling in a case in which Trump was found guilty of defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of assaulting her years ago. “Many people understand the word ‘rape.’”

Biden doubled down on his insistence that he would remain in the presidential race, reiterating that Democratic primary voters had chosen him and complaining that “elites” were trying to undo their will. “You’ve probably noticed there’s been a lot of speculation lately: ‘What’s Joe Biden going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? He’s going to drop out,’ ” Biden said. “Here’s my answer: I am running, and we’re going to win.”

Biden cited an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll that found the presidential race virtually unchanged after the June 27 presidential debate, in which Biden repeatedly made verbal stumbles, prompting a growing number of Democrats to call on him to end his bid for reelection and allow someone else to head the ticket.

“I’m the only Democrat or Republican who has beaten Donald Trump ever. And I’m going to beat him again,” Biden said. “I know him. Donald Trump is a loser.”

Still, the speech came as Biden faced a continuing drip of statements from Democrats urging him to step aside. Two more lawmakers joined the calls for him to end his candidacy Friday, underlining that this week’s high-stakes news conference had not squelched concerns in the party that he would struggle to defeat Trump.

The two defectors — Reps. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.) — joined three of their Democratic colleagues who had asked Biden to pull out Thursday night after the news conference concluded. In all, 21 House members had urged the president to reconsider his candidacy as of late Friday — about 10 percent of all House Democrats — as well as one senator, Peter Welch of Vermont.

“Joe Biden saved our country once, and I’m joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again,” she said Friday morning. “Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump.”

Petterson was followed later in the day by Levin. “Making this statement is not easy,” said Levin. “I have deep respect for President Biden’s five-plus decades of public service … But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in a letter to colleagues Friday, said he had met privately with Biden the previous night to discuss the election and convey the sentiments of his fellow Democratic lawmakers. Jeffries did not specify what he had told the president or how Biden had responded, but his letter notably did not urge Biden to stay in the race or say that House Democrats were behind his candidacy.

At Friday’s rally, Biden signaled his intent to lean harder into the argument that whatever his own flaws, Trump is beyond the pale of American politics. He contended that Trump has escaped scrutiny for his numerous liabilities: a criminal conviction, a judicial declaration that he is guilty of sexual assault, the loss of a fraud case and ongoing investigations into his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

“They hammer me because I sometimes confuse names. I say that’s Charlie instead of Bill,” Biden said. “But guess what? Donald Trump has gotten a free pass.” He recalled that Trump had mixed up his former Republican opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Today we’re going to shine a spotlight on Donald Trump,” Biden said. “The press so far hasn’t. I think they’re going to soon. We’re going to say who he is.”

About 30 minutes into his remarks, Biden laid out a vision for the first 100 days of a second term, a response to criticism that he has been vague about what he would do if reelected. Nearly all of the president’s priorities would require passage by Congress, including making Roe v. Wade federal law, signing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act into law, expanding and strengthening Social Security and Medicare and banning assault weapons.

The president’s impassioned delivery was in a sense its own pitch for Biden’s continued candidacy, an implicit response to Democrats who have worried he no longer has the vigor or forcefulness for a hard-fought campaign.

But the combination of Biden’s determination and his fellow Democrats’ doubts left the landscape where it has been for some time: A Democratic Party deeply divided over the path forward, with the prospect of a second Trump presidency, which most Democrats consider catastrophic, hanging over every move.

The president also continued his behind-the-scenes effort to shore up his support, joining a virtual meeting with BOLD PAC, a group affiliated with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Biden also delivered remarks and took questions during a virtual meeting with leaders from the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and members of that bloc’s political arm.

On the way to the rally, Biden stopped by a campaign organizing event in a Detroit suburb, joking twice about his age and ending his 14-minute remarks by reassuring organizers that he’s “okay.”

“That’s why I’m running to finish this job. There’s more to do. I know I’m only 41,” Biden said. “I promise you I’m okay.” Earlier in his remarks, as he touted his administration’s accomplishments on health care, the economy and manufacturing, he joked that he was “270 years old.”

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said that despite troubling polls for Democrats in Michigan, a state Biden almost certainly must win to retake the White House, the state remains “competitive.”

Some Democrats said they were looking forward to Trump’s imminent announcement of a running mate and to the Republican National Convention taking place next week, hoping that would shift some of the nation’s focus to the GOP’s own vulnerabilities, including Trump’s own misstatements and often rambling speeches.

Biden’s aides hoped the speech would mark another step in Biden’s effort to recover from his stumbling debate performance, following a news conference Thursday when he displayed a sophisticated command of foreign policy and global economics but continued to make verbal missteps.

Early on in the question-and-answer session, for example, he mistakenly referred to Vice President Harris as “Vice President Trump,” a verbal slip that elicited audible gasps in the room and frustration from already-nervous Democrats.

He took issue with a report that he had told a group of supporters he needed to end his days at 8 p.m.

“What I said was, instead of my every day starting at 7 and going to bed at midnight, it would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more,” Biden said. “Instead of starting a fundraiser at 9 o’clock, start it at 8 o’clock — people get to go home by 10 o’clock. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Biden also delivered lengthy, complex answers to a range of foreign policy questions and argued forcefully that he is the most qualified person to defeat Trump and govern the country. Aides seized on those answers, saying they should lay to rest any questions that may have arisen after the debate about the president’s intellectual capacity and mental agility.

The president’s visit to Michigan, however, highlighted another key political vulnerability, one that was bedeviling his campaign well before the June debate: Arab Americans, Muslims and liberals deeply angered by his response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Many have said they will withhold their votes because of his failure to call for a permanent cease-fire and cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.

More than 38,000 Palestinians have died in the enclave in the past nine months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel launched a punishing military assault in Gaza after Hamas militants crossed the border into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

Michigan is home to the country’s largest Arab American population, with about 300,000 people who claim ancestry from the Middle East or North Africa. Michigan’s Arab and Muslim community overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020, when he won the state by 154,000 votes.

Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Mich. — where Arab Americans make up the majority of the population — said he has not spoken to White House officials for several months about his constituents’ concerns over the war in Gaza. Even as Gaza receded from the headlines in recent weeks, Hammoud said, the situation on the ground has continued to worsen and residents have not lost focus on the issue.

“Earlier this year, the president sent his senior White House officials to listen to the constituency he sought support from four years ago, and there have been no meaningful steps since. Things have only gone backward,” Hammoud said, referring to a Feb. 8 meeting in which senior national security officials visited Dearborn and met with the mayor and other officials.

“We’re looking for a president with the backbone to call for a cease-fire,” Hammoud added. “This is not the president that was promised to us four years ago.”

Most public polls show Biden trailing Trump in Michigan, which is key to the president’s narrowing path to victory — he has few, if any, paths without it.

The Biden campaign argued in a memo obtained by The Washington Post on Thursday that it can win by focusing on the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with President Biden on Thursday night following an emotional week in which House Democrats reached no firm public consensus on whether their party’s leader should run for a second term.

The meeting, which took place after Biden’s much-anticipated news conference, marks a defining moment for Jeffries, who has served as the top House Democrat for just a year and a half.

Alongside other congressional leaders, Jeffries has come face to face with Biden at critical junctures — during negotiations on how to avert a debt ceiling collapse and while sending critical aid to foreign allies — and casually at House Democratic retreats. But the would-be House speaker has never huddled with the president to discuss the sensitive and potentially consequential matter of whether House Democrats believe Biden can defeat former president Donald Trump in November.

The meeting was disclosed by Jeffries in a letter he sent to House Democrats on Friday morning and comes after a week in which he listened intently to every faction of a diverse caucus before delivering his assessment to Biden.

“On behalf of the House Democratic Caucus, I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden,” Jeffries said in the letter. “In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together.”

Jeffries declined to offer details about the topics discussed during their in-person conversation, an omission his office says was intentional. But concerns on Capitol Hill from all corners of an often volatile caucus were mounting all week, as even some of Biden’s staunchest defenders expressed doubt about his ability to win reelection. Publicly and privately on Capitol Hill, there was widespread panic among politically vulnerable members about what some viewed as the inevitability of their ship sinking with Biden come November.

“The letter sent by Leader Hakeem Jeffries to his House Democratic colleagues speaks for itself. It was a private conversation that will remain private,” said Christie Stephenson, communications director for Jeffries.

Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, also told reporters Friday that he would not provide a readout of the private conversation. But he said he believes that “leader Jeffries and others have made clear that they continue to stand with the president” and that they “understand that the president is running.”

Meanwhile, Biden met virtually with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday afternoon. During that meeting, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin, who represents a California swing district, asked Biden to step aside “for the good of his constituents and the country” after hearing concerns from his constituents, according to three people familiar with the call.

In response, Biden said he understood the concerns that many may have about his age and why he must prove himself to lawmakers and the public.

“That’s why I’m going out and letting people touch me, poke me, ask me questions,” Biden said, according to a person familiar with his remarks. “It’s a legitimate concern for people, but that’s why I think it’s important I got to get out and show people everything from how well I move to how much I know, and that I’m still in good charge.”

Publicly, Jeffries has said he supports the president. He did not coordinate with nor has he publicly echoed former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told “Morning Joe” this week that it was Biden’s “decision” about whether to run again, despite the fact the president had made clear he had already decided to go ahead with his campaign.

Notably, Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), one of the most respected House Democrats whose endorsement proved pivotal to Biden’s 2020 campaign, said on NBC’s “Today” show Friday that he enthusiastically supports the president and called on Democrats to focus on touting the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements. But he notably left the door open to a potential top-of-the-ticket change, mirroring Pelosi.

“If he decides to change his mind later on, then we will respond to that,” Clyburn said. “We have until the 19th of August to open our convention. And so I would hope we’d spend our time now focusing on the record we would lay out for the American people.”

As of Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Biden had not talked since their one call last week, according to a person familiar with the development.

Multiple lawmakers and aides who attended several meetings that Jeffries held this week painted a grim picture of Biden’s standing. The same widespread worries were repeated across those meetings, and heard not only by Jeffries but also by his lieutenants — Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.).

In several of those meetings, Jeffries told lawmakers that he would listen and ultimately relay their viewpoints to Biden, according to two people familiar with the remarks.

As of Friday afternoon, 21 House Democrats had called on Biden to drop out of the contest, citing several reasons that they believe their party leader is too weak to beat Trump in November. One senator — Pete Welch (D-Vt.) — made the same argument.

Of those 21, only five came out against Biden after his closely watched news conference Thursday evening, which Hill Democrats expressed all week would serve as a barometer on whether to publicly speak out.

The handful of public detractors out of 264 House Democrats is relatively low and — as of Friday afternoon — certainly did not amount to the cascade of lawmakers who some privately predicted could call for Biden’s exit after the NATO summit ended Friday.

But the small public numbers belie the significantly higher amount of House Democrats who remain deeply worried that Biden and his campaign do not have a pathway to win, according to multiple House Democrats and aides familiar with the concerns.

That anxiety reflects widespread panic that the president remaining atop the ticket could gravely affect House Democrats’ chances of retaking the majority. Jeffries had high hopes of becoming speaker because Democrats must gain just a net of four seats to regain the majority.

Now that the NATO summit is over, Biden and his campaign are ramping up their outreach to key Democratic constituencies. Biden will have met with the CHC, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus between Friday and Saturday afternoon.

“Does there continue to be anxiety? Yes. We understand that. The president understands that. That’s why we continue to engage with folks on the Hill,” Tyler said Friday aboard Air Force One.

One thing seems clear: House Democrats don’t agree on a path forward, divided over the extent to which they define the moment as being bigger than Biden. Those with overwhelming concern about his electability privately say the president must recognize that preserving democracy and ensuring Trump doesn’t recapture the White House is beyond his personal ambitions. Those staunchly in Biden’s corner say Democrats must immediately unite around him to avoid losing sight of defeating Trump and his agenda.

Jeffries and other lawmakers are digesting recent national polls and their own internal campaign data, according to multiple lawmakers and aides, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Sentiment among House Democrats fluctuated day-to-day this week — and depending on the corner of the caucus.

But a telling shift occurred midweek when Biden’s backing began to crumble within the CBC, a group of roughly 60 members referred to as the “conscience of Congress” and viewed as the backbone of his support. Concerns, which echoed those of other lawmakers, centered on pushing Biden’s orbit to make staff changes aimed at listening better to lawmakers on how to best message constituents in their districts — and ensuring the president does not hemorrhage support in critical states.

Though not shared by all of the group’s members, general CBC support for Biden also tested Jeffries, who has immense respect for the bloc as a fellow CBC member.

House Democrats met behind closed doors Tuesday morning for almost two hours in a conversation that was described by multiple people familiar with it as somber, candid and emotional. Opinions ranged from insisting the party come together or risk appearing like it can’t govern, to grave worries about chances of recapturing the majority with Biden as their running mate.

No consensus was reached in that meeting, nor by the time members left Washington on Thursday. But several lawmakers and others familiar with their thinking privately described a political paralysis that might not soon be shaken.

That stasis persisted Friday, well after Biden’s news conference, where he displayed a fluidity on foreign policy while making some verbal missteps.

The paralysis, one lawmaker said, felt as if Democrats were “marching towards their death,” believing it was inevitable that Biden would lose to Trump.

Support within the Hispanic caucus, which contains 42 lawmakers, has remained fluid. Only Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and now Levin have said Biden will lose if he remains in the race. There’s a divide between those publicly backing Biden, those who say they will continue to observe the president on the campaign trail before casting judgment and those haven’t publicly opined.

Jeffries held two meetings this week with Democrats in competitive seats who were incredibly tough on Biden. The gatherings were described as intense and honest, according to multiple people familiar with them. Members were unequivocal that Biden needed to step aside, or ultimately risk their reelection chances and possibly prevent Jeffries from becoming speaker in a Democratic House.

Some argued that they would automatically be in better political shape if Vice President Harris becomes the nominee, because she would immediately eliminate the age question and help Democrats refocus on Trump.

Jeffries also met with the New Democratic Coalition leadership team, which represents almost 100 pragmatic liberal and moderate Democrats, who shared concerns that deep divisions undermined the party itself and its to beat Trump. The team urged the minority leader to help shift attention back to Trump ahead of the GOP convention in Milwaukee starting Sunday.