WASHINGTON -Some of President Joe Biden's close campaign aides met with Senate Democrats on Thursday to try to ease growing opposition from within his party to Biden's reelection bid, ahead of his first solo news conference in almost eight months.

Biden's campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since the 81-year-old incumbent's stumbling debate performance against Donald Trump, his 78-year-old Republican rival, raised fresh questions about his age and mental acuity.

In a memo, Biden's campaign argued that the debate has not dramatically shifted the race and aimed to win undecided voters by shifting the focus to Trump, a convicted felon who faces two more criminal prosecutions for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

"No one is denying that the debate was a setback. But Joe Biden and this campaign have made it through setbacks before," the memo said.

The past week has brought a steady drip of elected Democrats calling on Biden to end his campaign, citing concerns that he could not only lose the White House but cost the party control of both chambers of Congress.

Two Democrats in the House of Representatives -- Brad Schneider of Illinois and Hillary Scholten of Michigan -- joined that chorus on Thursday.

"I am forever grateful for his leadership and service to our nation. The time has come, however, for President Biden to heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership," Schneider said in a prepared statement.

At least 11 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate's 51 Democrats have now appealed to the president to withdraw from the race.

As they left a lunch meeting with Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and other top aides, several other Senate Democrats said Biden should remain their standard bearer. "The best way we can defeat Donald Trump is to reelect President Biden," said Senator Maggie Hassan.

Others said they needed to see Biden put more effort into the race. "Some of my concerns are allayed, some others have been deepened," Senator Richard Blumenthal said.

There were signs of concern within Biden's camp as well.

The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering ways to convince him to drop his reelection bid, while NBC News reported that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the election.

ALL EYES ON THE NEWS CONFERENCE

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that Democrats in the chamber were still trying to decide how to respond. He said he was not worried that Biden would make it harder to win control of the House, which Republicans now control by a narrow 220-213 margin.

They will all likely be watching closely at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time (2230 GMT), when Biden is due to field questions from the White House press corps.

At his first formal solo news conference since November 2023, Biden will have to speak on a wide range of topics - including likely questions on whether his doctors have found evidence of mental decline.

It will be Biden's most unscripted appearance since the June 27 debate, where he appeared to lose his train of thought several times and stumbled over several answers.

An interview with ABC News last week raised further alarms when Biden said he would be satisfied if he lost the election as long as he tried his best.

Previous interactions with White House reporters have also backfired. In February, Biden mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico at an impromptu news conference he called to rebut a prosecutor's assessment that he had a poor memory.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Biden and Trump tied at 40% each. Other opinion polls have found Trump widening his lead over Biden, and some strategists have warned that Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states like Virginia and Minnesota.

In their strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

They did not mention Nevada, Georgia and Arizona, which Biden narrowly won in 2020. Nonpartisan analysts at the Cook Political Report earlier this week changed their ratings to indicate they thought Trump held the advantage in those three states.

Biden has seen his fundraising advantage over Trump disappear in recent months, and some high-profile Democratic donors, including actor George Clooney, are calling on him to step aside.

Biden has insisted that he is not dropping out, and party rules make it all but impossible for anyone else to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August unless he steps aside.

Democrats would also have to figure out how to hand the nomination to Harris or give others like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a chance to make their case.

  - Reuters