Dems will move against Biden after NATO summit, pollster predicts, as pols tease more defections

Democrats are biding their time until after this week’s NATO summit to pressure President Biden into ending his re-election bid, a party pollster told The Post Thursday — as prominent lawmakers teased that more of their colleagues would soon come out against the commander-in-chief.

“I’m of the belief that this is very close to the end,” said John Zogby, pollster and founder of an eponymous marketing and political consulting firm.

“[I think] that the NATO summit wasn’t a test so much for Biden as it was a holding action,” he added. “You don’t embarrass the world’s leader in front of world leaders. You’re going to see more and more Congress people come out and I think the end is very near.”

So far, 11 congressional Democrats have already publicly called on Biden, 81, to step away from the 2024 race, but more have hinted at their distress with the course of the incumbent’s campaign, particularly following his disastrous debate against Donald Trump on June 27.

“I think everyone will be talking over Friday, Saturday and by Sunday you should have some idea of what’s going on,” Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) told reporters Thursday on his way into a lunchtime meeting with top Biden campaign officials.

Manchin, who is leaving Congress early next year, reportedly had to be talked out of publicly breaking with Biden during an appearance on a Sunday morning public affairs program following the debate, in which Biden frequently appeared confused and frail.

The strongest suggestion that Biden’s fate would be sealed after the gathering of NATO heads of government in the nation’s capital came from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Democrats were “all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”

Apparently ignoring Biden’s stated desire earlier this week to remain in the race, the 84-year-old Pelosi added that “I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with. I think it’s really important and I would hope everyone would join in.

“Let him deal with this NATO conference,” Pelosi said. “This is a very big deal. Thirty heads of — over 30 heads of state are here. He is the host of it, and that means not just hosting, it means orchestrating the discussion and setting the agenda. And he’s doing so magnificently. And I’ve said to everyone, let’s just hold off whatever you’re thinking. Either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week.”

On Thursday, Politico reported that Pelosi’s comments were meant as a “subtle green light” for Democrats — particularly those in battleground districts — to speak out if they want Biden off the party’s ticket.

The NATO summit was scheduled to be capped by a press conference featuring Biden, which one Democratic operative called “another make-or-break moment” for the octogenarian.

“I feel like the narrative needs to change,” this person said. “So either Dems need to get behind Biden or he needs to step aside. But we are losing time.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) played coy about the Biden situation Thursday, saying that his conference was “engaged in a process of talking to each other” and declining to comment about pressure from donors or other outside stakeholders

Jeffries also denied that he’s worried that Biden could become a liability for his most vulnerable members.

Meanwhile, multiple reports indicated Thursday that doubts about the president have spread to members of his own campaign team — who have begun quietly conducting surveys pitting Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, the New York Times reported.

“He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official told NBC News. “He will never recover from this.”

“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” another source told the outlet.

Zogby suggested that polling Harris against Trump would serve two separate purposes: Either “she does worse, and that Biden has a reason to stay in the race,” or, “more than likely, they’re testing to see if he can hand the reins of the campaign over to her.”

Shortly after the debate, Biden deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty sent out a fundraising blast bashing the “bedwetting brigade” of Democrats who want Biden to step aside.

He attached polling from left-wing shop Data for Progress that showed Biden and Harris faring better against Trump than other pretenders, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“The question for me, and a lot of us, is: Who is the best person to beat Donald Trump?” another individual described as working to re-elect Biden told NBC News. “There are a lot of us that are true blue that are questioning our initial thoughts on that.”

Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon argued in a memo sent to their team Thursday that there is a “clear pathway ahead for us,” the New York Times reported.

“There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump,” they went on.

“Hypothetical polling of alternative nominees will always be unreliable, and surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden.”

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Post.