Democrats really have no way to spin this. We break down Biden’s disastrous debate.

Joe Biden face-planted in one of the highest stakes moments of his political life — igniting widespread concerns among Democrats about his fitness as a candidate.

Debating former President Donald Trump with a raspy voice, wandering eyes, pallid complexion and a halting delivery, Biden’s performance was at times unintelligible. And though Trump blustered through his own answers with falsehoods, there was one defining issue: Biden’s age.

Democrats are reeling. The first debate is in the books. The second — and last — won’t come until Sept. 10, and that’s assuming it even happens. We asked five POLITICO campaign reporters and editors for their takeaways from the first general election debate of the 2024 campaign.

Is there any argument that Biden didn’t lose this debate? And just how bad was it for him?

Sam Stein: Is there an argument? Sure. Is it a convincing one? Absolutely not. Even his own former aides are acknowledging it was a bad night, that he looked and sounded weak and that he didn’t do the essential thing he had to do, which is to calm the very concerns about his age that prompted his campaign to get this debate scheduled in the first place.

How bad is it? What do we know? I could surmise that it’s anywhere between debilitating and ephemeral — likely closer to the former. What we do know: It’s going to prompt a vicious news cycle for the campaign and they know it.

Steven Shepard: No. By stumbling out of the gate — and repeatedly over the course of more than an hour-and-a-half — Biden reinforced everything that voters have been saying gives them pause about electing him to another term.

Significant shares of Biden’s own voters were already uneasy about his candidacy, and the president did little to reassure them. In a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in the run-up to Thursday’s debate, only 51 percent of likely voters who picked Biden over Trump said they wanted Biden to be the Democratic nominee. Nearly as many, 45 percent, said there should be a different nominee. And 53 percent of Biden voters said they “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that Biden is “just too old to be an effective president.”

But there’s a difference between Biden losing the debate and Trump winning it. The traits voters don’t like about Trump were also on display at times — the ranting, the mendacity, the election denialism — so it’s hard to proclaim him much more than the winner by default.

Adam Wren: No. Democratic aides in text messages complained about CNN’s lack of fact-checking Trump’s statements. But no amount of fact-checking would have saved Biden. Even near the end of the debate when he had an opportunity to answer for his age — literally the only response he needed to have prepared for this debate — he started talking about microchips.

Natalie Allison: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” — Trump, summarizing what we were all thinking during the debate.

Biden had a couple moments when his answers were sharp — his response about Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, for example — but those were the exceptions. Trump’s pre-debate policy refreshers with friends and advisers clearly served him well, and he came across as decisive and energetic. The mic-muting rule certainly helped him. He won by all measures.

It was hard to even make out what Biden was saying at times, because he was speaking so softly. It was shocking when Biden started talking about crimes committed by undocumented immigrants — a favorite attack line of Trump’s — when it was his turn to answer about abortion. It was supposed to be a slam dunk moment for Biden to bash Republicans’ efforts to slash abortion rights, and he blew it.

Elena Schneider: Biden lost this debate within the first 15 minutes — probably the highest-viewed portion of the debate. Biden landed some strong rebuttals to Trump, particularly on Trump’s role during the Jan. 6 insurrection. But voters might’ve missed it if they turned off the debate after the first 30 minutes.

How will the debate change the trajectory of the race?

Stein: We will know pretty soon. I imagine that this will prompt a wave of serious Democrats now openly calling for Biden to back out of the race. I imagine it prompts the White House and campaign to take some substantive measures to try and calm those concerns. I imagine you will see some significant polling dips for Biden. All that said, the defining feature of this race has been it is static. And the defining feature of Joe Biden is that he’s stubborn. He’s not going to just end his campaign [Sam types with not much certainty].

Shepard: If there’s any silver lining for Biden, it’s that there are still more than four months to go until Election Day, and the trajectory of the race could change dozens of times before then. And that may be by design: Recall, it was Biden’s campaign that suggested holding the debate in late June — far earlier in the cycle than any other general election debate in history.

Wren: My texts from Democratic sources began pinging not much longer than 10 minutes into the debate lamenting how bad things seemed for Biden. “Drinking heavily,” said one. Short of a physical breakdown on stage, it’s difficult to contemplate a worse outcome for Biden. This debate will surely spark another round of Democratic bed-wetting.

Allison: This is obviously a really bad development for Biden. Pretty much the worst-case scenario for him tonight. (“After Afghanistan, this is the worst day of his presidency,” one Biden operative texted me.) He had the chance to convince persuadable voters that he isn’t as feeble and confused as Republicans have been saying, and instead prompted a flood of coverage about whether he’ll be replaced as the nominee.

Schneider: Like Adam, my phone started lighting up with texts from sources about how this was a “worst case scenario,” as one Democratic strategist said it.

What’s the one moment each candidate will regret, and what will we remember about this debate a year from now?

Stein: There are a number of ones for Biden. I mean, seriously, it’s hard to choose. I could make the case for “We finally beat Medicare,” which was an obvious gaffe (he meant Big Pharma). But Lord, he just gave an ad maker an absolute pot of gold! Or you could point to his abortion answer about trimesters. I really am unsure of what he was saying there, but it was the most important issue for him to hit and he was just extremely difficult to follow.

But for me, it has to be when the moderators literally asked Biden about age concerns and he just didn’t really take the opportunity to address them. Instead he talked about CHIPS and South Korea. Surely he and his team had prepared for this very question, but he just sort of whiffed.

As for Trump, it’s not like he had some magical evening. He was all over the place at times and told some real whoppers. He also invited a bit of mockery, not just talking about his golf game and cognitive tests but saying, upfront, he didn’t have sex with a porn star. That line in particular will go down in presidential debate history.

Shepard: This was a debate that won’t be remembered for one moment, but for an overriding feeling. And that raises the stakes for Biden in the next few days.

After Ronald Reagan bombed in his first debate with Walter Mondale, Reagan’s supporters turned the blame on the president’s staff. Then-RNC Chair Paul Laxalt said Reagan was “brutalized by a briefing process“ that stifled his freewheeling style in what was seen as a shot at aides like James Baker, Dick Darman and David Stockman.

Who gets the blame this time?

Allison: The clip of Biden inexplicably saying “We finally beat Medicare” is one we’ll see again, and will almost certainly be used by Republicans in ads. Democrats have tried to hit Trump over some GOP officials wanting to cut entitlement programs — an attack that already doesn’t stick, because Trump has maintained he is against doing so — but Biden’s nonsensical comment now gives them a way to try to go after Biden on it. While also mocking his cognitive condition.

Wren: I agree with Natalie. Six minutes and 57 seconds into the debate, Biden seemed to trail off — and never quite found his way back. Jake Tapper did him a favor by pivoting to Trump.

Schneider: Another moment that stands out to me was Biden’s answer on abortion rights, when he attacked Trump for “turn[ing] civil rights back to the states.” This is a key policy difference that the Biden campaign is banking on to animate Democrats and Independents alike. Like Natalie said, he flubbed it.