Democrat governors rallied behind President Joe Biden on Wednesday as the 81-year-old president faces growing calls to step aside and not run against former President Donald Trump this fall.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the chair of the Democrat Governors Association, attended the Biden event in person along with California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. The others attended the event virtually.

The Wall Street Journal found in a poll released on Wednesday that Trump leads Biden 48% to 42% and 80% of voters now say that Biden is “too old” to run again for president.

“Yes, he’s fit for office,” Walz claimed to reporters after the meeting. “None of us are denying Thursday night was a bad performance, it was a bad hit, if you will, on that, but it doesn’t impact what I believe, that he’s delivering.”

“The governors have his back,” Walz added. “A path to victory in November is the number one priority and that’s the number one priority of the president.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after 24 Democratic governors’ meeting with President Biden: “The governors have his back.” pic.twitter.com/PXgbrnIEIQ

— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) July 3, 2024

Moore said that the governors were “honest” with Biden about what their “feedback” was for him following the debate.

“We were honest about the concerns that we were hearing from people,” Moore said. “And we were also honest about the fact that, as the president continued to tell us and show us that he was all in, that we said we would stand with him.”

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Newsom posted on X after the meeting: “I heard three words from the President tonight — he’s all in. And so am I. @JoeBiden’s had our back. Now it’s time to have his.”

I heard three words from the President tonight — he’s all in. And so am I.@JoeBiden’s had our back. Now it’s time to have his.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 4, 2024

“Joe Biden is in it to win it,” Hochul posted on social media. “The stakes this November could not be higher.”

Whitmer posted online: “Joe Biden is our nominee. He is in it to win it and I support him.”

North Carolina’s Roy Cooper said in a statement: “We had a good meeting with the President talking about what’s needed to win. Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, and everyone in the room agreed that defeating him is imperative. President Biden told us he is definitely running for re-election, he is our nominee and we’ll continue doing everything we can to deliver North Carolina for him.”

Leftist and centrist parties in France are attempting to join forces to stop Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally party from taking power.

Last Sunday, National Rally won 34% of the vote; the left-wing New Popular Front won 28.12%, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, the Ensemble Coalition, won 20% of the vote. A second vote will be taken on Sunday.

“The second round of a French parliamentary is generally made up largely of run-off duels between the top two candidates in a constituency, but because so many third-placed candidates qualified on Sunday, that set up more than 300 three-way run-offs,” the BBC noted.  That would make it easier for a candidate from Le Pen’s party to win.

Thus, at least 200 candidates from the centrist and leftist parties — 134 from the Left and 82 from Macron’s party, according to Le Monde — have withdrawn from the race so that in their constituencies, Le Pen’s party will see their candidate running against only one opponent, the one thought to have the best chance of winning.

After the election last Sunday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of the hard-Left party France Unbowed (which joined a coalition with the New Popular Front) and has refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization, advised any of his candidates who had finished third to withdraw, Politico reported.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, aligned with Macron, echoed the message, saying, “In such circumstances, France deserves that we not hesitate.”

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But some centrists who strongly oppose the hard-Left would not countenance supporting them in order to defeat the National Rally party because of their penchant for spending and their opposition to supporting the state of Israel in its war against Hamas. “Senior figures like Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and former prime minister Edouard Philippe – both originally from the center-right – are refusing to issue instructions to vote systematically against the RN,” the BBC reported.

On Tuesday, Le Pen also accused Macron of a “administrative coup d’état” after being apprised that he was getting ready to make important appointments in the police and army.

“When you want to counter the results of an election by nominating your people to jobs, and when that stops [the government] from being able to carry out policies which the French people have asked for … I call that an administrative coup d’état. … I hope it is only rumor,” she said.