Democrats brace for amped-up debate over Biden after RNC: ANALYSIS

After Saturday's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden said that "unity is the most elusive goal." For Democrats, perhaps so.

Republicans are in the middle of their nominating convention, where in a show of force, the party is rallying around Trump after last weekend's shooting and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump's chosen running mate.

Photos of a defiant Trump moments after being grazed by a would-be assassin's bullet along with the dismissal of a criminal case against him on Monday and Democrats' meltdown over Biden's disastrous June debate have helped paint a picture of a GOP nominee ascendant.

Democrats, meanwhile, are still convulsing over Biden's narrowing path to victory -- an internal spat that slowed since Saturday's shooting but is being fueled by Trump's politically advantageous streak and the upcoming end of the GOP convention.

"It's moving again now," one Democratic pollster said of the conversation over Biden's decision to stay in the race. "The shooting attempt give it a 72-hour pause. It's now unpaused."

Democrats are already likely blistered from all the handwringing they've done in recent weeks.

The party has been mired in internal disputes over whether Biden should end his campaign, undeterred by Biden's statements, media interviews and other public appearances intended to assuage worries over his fitness for office.

About 20 lawmakers have publicly said he should drop out of the 2024 race, with even more voicing concerns that Biden could not only lose to Trump this November but also take House and Senate candidates down with him.

Calls for Biden's ouster and media speculation of the president's future slowed after the shooting, with lawmakers wary of politicizing a fraught moment. That reprieve now appears to have been an intermission to the debate rather than a conclusion.

House Democrats are circulating a letter calling on the Democratic National Committee to delay a virtual roll call of party delegates -- which could happen as early as Sunday. The roll call to formally nominate Biden is currently scheduled to take place before Democrats' convention, a move the letter argues would "[stifle] debate and prematurely [shut] down any possible change in the Democratic ticket."

Rep. Adam Schiff, Democrats' Senate nominee in California, also warned donors about Biden on Saturday, saying, "I do not think he is the best person to go into this election," according to a transcript obtained by ABC News Tuesday.

"I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose, and we may very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House," Schiff added.

The developments stood in stark contrast to a GOP putting forth a united front in Milwaukee and rallying around a physically wounded Trump and his anointed partner in Vance -- with Democrats expressing alarm for when the spotlight moves off the Republican National Convention at the end of this week and back on their woes.

"It should be," one source familiar with the Biden campaign's strategy said when asked if Republicans' boost from their convention is amplifying Democratic concerns. "But it seems like the Democratic Party is currently paralyzed by uncertainty

"You have a guy who is recalcitrant, who doesn't want to move, and everybody knows he needs to move, and everybody knows that if he doesn't move, this thing is going to blow up spectacularly on all of us," added an informal adviser to the Biden campaign. "And it's frightening as hell, because something's got to give."

The path forward is particularly uncertain for Biden and Democrats.

After Biden's worrisome debate performance, his campaign put forth an aggressive playbook to retake ground: blitz the trail with campaign events and media interviews, and hammer away at Trump.

So far, however, Biden's increased swing-state travel and interviews with ABC News and NBC News have done little to allay Democrats' concerns. The president took a more bellicose stance Tuesday, dubbing Trump and Vance the "Project 2025 ticket," but it could be more difficult to label Trump a threat to democracy after the former president survived an assassination attempt -- a reality even Biden recognized.

"Look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric," Biden told NBC News Monday.

Trump has also forecasted a more unifying tone on his part after the shooting, which Democrats said would potentially scramble their messaging, even if they appeared skeptical Trump could keep it up until November.

"I think there's an initial concern that if Trump can play this the right way that he can look like a unifier and get outside of his brand," one battleground Democratic strategist said. "But then also at the same time, I would tell you that no one has any confidence that he can continue to play the straight man."

Nevertheless, operatives said Biden has virtually no choice but to plug away at hitting Trump, with the president seemingly agreeing.

"Just because you must lower the temperature … doesn't mean we should stop telling the truth of who you are, what you've done, what you'll do," Biden told a Las Vegas crowd on Tuesday.

Biden's insistence on staying in the race and the winnowing calendar have led some Democrats to say the party should just shut up and close ranks behind him, arguing that doing so would strengthen the case for reelection.

"I think the more people accept the horse that we've got and bet on the horse that we have, the better our chances are to be successful…Democrats have to stop handwringing in order for Biden's chances to go up," the battleground operative said. "I think people are starting to come around to the position that there's just no way to get Biden out, and it's probably not the right move to get him out at this point. Injecting more instability in this process is ultimately not helpful."

Still, even those who were more confident in Biden's chances conceded the hole he put himself in the debate remains deep.

One adviser to Democratic donors expressed skepticism that the debate by itself changed the minds of many voters given how widespread concerns already were about the president's age (81 years old). But that doesn't mean the debate did Democrats any favors.

"Do I have the confidence that an emboldened Donald Trump can be taken on by Joe Biden when every single question is about whether he has the cognitive abilities? Not really. At some level, the Biden people have lost the narrative," the source said. "They needed this to be about Donald Trump, and it's about Joe Biden. That's a tough position to be in."

ABC's Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.