ST. LOUIS—High-profile Democrats in Missouri and the St. Louis region have expressed a wide range of opinions over the past few days when asked about President Joe Biden’s status atop the party’s ticket in November after last month’s televised debate with former President Donald Trump cast doubt about the presumptive nominee.

“You don’t give up on somebody just because they had a bad performance,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, a Biden-committed delegate to the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago, told Spectrum News Tuesday. Jones emphasized the Biden administration’s work to send half a billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the city, along with federal infrastructure money and noted that mayors from across the country were lining up to be Biden surrogates. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas shared a social media post following a call Biden had with mayors Tuesday.

Over the past week, Biden has spoken to mayors, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and held campaign rallies, in addition to last Friday’s interview with ABC News. He’ll hold a solo news conference Thursday. 

“We’re going to see how this week goes and we’re going to give the president a chance to demonstrate that he can communicate with the American people,” said St. Louis County Executive Sam Page, also a Biden convention delegate, on Tuesday. “We know that voting for Donald Trump is not an option but we want to make sure that we have someone that can communicate the message to the people of America and keep our country going in the right direction.”

“He won the Democratic primary, he is our party’s presumptive nominee and he has made it clear that he will stay in the race for the Presidency. I’ll continue to stand with President Biden as we fight to keep Donald Trump out of the White House,” Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill, said in a statement to Spectrum News on Tuesday after House Democrats met in Washington to discuss Biden’s status.

Budzinski is a former Biden administration official and is likely in a safe seat heading into November.

It’s a slightly more complicated scenario across the Mississippi River in Missouri’s first congressional district, where Rep. Cori Bush is in a heated three-way primary.

“The same right wing influences that are trying to take me down are trying to take down President Biden so that’s where my head is so I’m listening to my colleagues and I’m listening to my constituents,” Bush told reporters Tuesday after emerging from the caucus gathering. Bush has not hesitated to oppose Biden administration policy on a range of issues, including U.S. support for Israel. She also voted against Biden’s signature infrastructure bill because she wanted a legislative agenda on social service spending to be approved as part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda first.

Her opponents in the Aug. 6 primary, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell and former State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, have tried to portray Bush in part as a less reliable Biden ally in Congress, a theme that is also playing out in the aftermath of the presidential debate.

“President Joe Biden not only has my unwavering support for a second term, it is my priority to protect him from the devious throws of the conservative right wing,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “It is simply not enough to vote with Biden's agenda. We must champion them with legislative expertise and gamesmanship.”

Bell’s campaign has not responded to a request for comment but Bell did share a supportive social media post from former President Barack Obama after the debate.

In a "red" state like Missouri that is unlikely to be heavily contested by presidential candidates, U.S. Senate hopeful Lucas Kunce suggested whoever is atop the ticket for either party is unlikely to make a difference.

"It doesn’t matter who the national Democrat or the national Republican is here in Missouri. Neither of them is really going to be campaigning here…what matters is the top of the ticket here is going to be our senate race and protecting women’s reproductive rights and abortion and so those are going to be the two issues that matter here and we’re gonna win both of them.”

Kunce’s main primary opponent, State Sen. Karla May, reaffirmed her support for Biden Wednesday. May is also a convention delegate.