Ex-Biden Staffer Insists Voters Want Him to Stay in Race One Day After Poll Shows Two-Thirds of Dems Want Him Out

It’s unclear what evidence Meghan Hays, formerly President Joe Biden’s director of message planning at the White House, has for her claim on CNN Thursday that voters have been “forceful” about their desire that Biden remain in the presidential race.

Asked by Brianna Keilar if she thinks Biden is going to drop out, Hays answered in the negative.

“I don’t,” replied Hays. “I think that he’s made his his points very clear here. He’s been saying the same thing now for three weeks. I think that they are going to take this time to focus and to refocus their efforts onto Donald Trump. And I think that every day that the Democratic Party isn’t focused on fighting Donald Trump her, they’re missing missing the thread here in being able to to take their fight to the party.”

“And someone like Obama saying what he’s saying has no bearing on President Biden?” inquired Keilar, referring to reports that former President Barack Obama has told Democratic allies that Biden should consider dropping out.

“No, I think it has a bearing on him. I think obviously he takes all these things into consideration,” said Hays. “I think he’s taking all this stuff in. But I think that he’s out in the states and he is talking to voters. And voters, as you’ve seen in the past couple of days, have been very forceful in not wanting him to drop. So I think, you know, he’s out there and he’s talking to people.”

“He’s not out there,” interjected Keilar.

“Well, right now, but yesterday he was,” clarified Hays, who concluded that “I’m not sure that the elites of the party are correlating to the people on the ground.”

Notably, an Associated Press/National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC) poll released to the public on Wednesday indicated that 65% of Democrats and 70% of Americans think Biden should withdraw from the race and allow his party to pick a new nominee.

The same survey of 1,253 adults, who completed the survey either online or via telephone, was conducted between July 11-15 and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.8%.

Watch above via CNN.