WASHINGTON, DC (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – With an apparent Mark Warner-called meeting of Senate Democrats this evening not happening, UVA politics professor Larry Sabato says it’s just as well. Sabato says he believes President Biden when he wrote in a Monday letter to Congressional Democrats he will not step aside.

Sabato says while a handful of Congressional Dems and donors have been trickling out that Biden needs to step aside, Biden’s been holding events in swing states trying to, whether true or not, show vigor. He says if they’d come out right after the debate, they might have been able to do something. But a handful of Congressional Dems and donors expressing concern a week-to-ten-days later is wholly ineffective.

Sabato says Biden has been weakened, and Dems are weakened in trying to take the House and keep the Senate. But it’s a long campaign and Trump has his own issues as a candidate, so we don’t know how the June debate performance will play in the fall.