President Joe Biden was supposed to give an energetic speech at the convention of one of the oldest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the nation, touting his administration’s accomplishments in an effort to turn the page on a difficult past month for his campaign, spurred by a disastrous debate performance.

None of that went to plan.

Instead, after attendees at the UnidosUS conference in Las Vegas waited hours in the ballroom for speaker after speaker to lead into Biden’s remarks, Janet Murguía, the nonprofit’s president, came up to the podium to share bad news.

“The president has been at many events, as we all know, and he just tested positive for COVID,” Murguía said, adding that he joked with her to tell folks “we’re not going to get rid of him that quickly” and that they would still have a chance to hear from him directly in the future. She added that because the pandemic has affected so many in the Latino community, UnidosUS was appreciative that he sought to “not just protect himself, but to protect all of us.”

Biden was set to remind us of all the actions he has taken on behalf of our community and “we’re just disappointed we won’t hear from him directly today,” she said.

Ahead of Biden’s expected remarks, the White House announced a new executive order strengthening federal partnerships with Hispanic-serving institutions, along with a new proposal to ensure Dreamers can enroll in a federal high school program known as TRIO.

Biden has sought to steady himself after his poor debate performance by leaning on Hispanic and Black lawmakers in the congressional Hispanic and Black caucuses. On Tuesday, Biden gave a speech in Las Vegas to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in which he declared he was “all in” for November to chants of “four more years.”

But past the MGM Grand’s bronze-finished lion statues and inside the air-conditioned ballroom of the UnidosUS conference, where attendees were told to expect airport-level security from the Secret Service after a shocking attempt on former president Donald Trump’s life, some felt Biden has not done enough to warrant sticking it out.

“I’ve told the campaign he needs to shove off, he’s completely damaged goods,” one senior state lawmaker who attended the conference told Vanity Fair. They argued that the campaign is not focused on the voter’s point of view, citing the stunning scene after Trump was shot at during a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

“People are seeing a guy who got shot in the face, putting his hand up in the air. It’s iconic and representative of what Donald Trump wants the contrast to be with a guy who got COVID and is weeks away from a terrible debate performance,” the source added.

The lawmaker’s comments come after California representative Adam Schiff, a prominent ally of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on Wednesday became the latest high-profile Democrat to call for Biden to step aside. That was followed by reports that Pelosi, as well as her successor, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, had privately expressed concerns to Biden about his staying atop the ticket.

This story is drawn from interviews with 10 attendees of the UnidosUS conference, which has in past years seen speeches from Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton, similarly looking to tout new laws or policy proposals in front of Latinos from across the country.

Janeth Vences, the student body president of the College of Southern Nevada (CSN), was present at the conference and at an economic summit at CSN, where Biden spoke Tuesday to announce an affordable housing initiative calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring corporate landlords to cap rent increases at 5% or risk losing federal tax breaks. He also spoke about plans to build more affordable housing on public lands in Nevada.

Still, Vences hopes Biden will see the wisdom of stepping aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. “He’s from 1942,” she said, citing the president’s birth year. “My dad is from 1942, and I personally wouldn’t trust my dad driving right now and Biden is driving the nation.”

Vences, who knocked on doors for Hillary Clinton, said she’s “all for Kamala coming in.”

However, she underlined the dangers for Democrats in a state like Nevada, which has grown more tightly contested in recent election cycles, and was the only state where an incumbent Democratic governor lost in 2022.

“It’s very real that Nevada could go red,” she added, pointing to Teamsters president Sean O’Brien’s speech at the Republican National Convention “making it seem like Republicans are pro-union, when they’re not.”

“It definitely raises some flags in the Latino community here,” she said.

An attendee who serves as a corporate representative echoed Vences’s call for Biden to step down in favor of Harris. “I think he should bow out,” this person said. “Not only does it leave space for someone new to take over, in all likelihood Kamala, but it also leaves the VP spot open.”

An AP/NORC poll released Wednesday found that nearly two thirds of Latino Democrats say Biden should withdraw from the campaign and allow his party to choose a different candidate.

After the president’s COVID diagnosis, the source said that, unfairly or not, people will view him canceling his speech as a sign of “weakness” during an already difficult time.

But at the conference, this source said they witnessed Biden allies and cabinet staffers attempting to tamp down dissent by pushing the message that the president is better than the alternative. They also said a minority of the audience were progressives who were angry that the calls to replace Biden have drawn outsize attention—more than that paid to the deaths of children in Palestine or to school shooting victims.

“The general sentiment at Unidos is that people would vote for a ham sandwich before Trump,” the source acknowledged. “The progressive part of the party still feels it has some communication avenues to air its grievances and accomplish some of its goals, but with Trump they don’t have anything.”

With some polls showing Trump gaining Hispanic support since 2020, one Miami leader who attended said the Latinos he has spoken with are increasingly taking a “grocery cart” mindset toward who they’ll support. “They’re saying under Trump, ‘la cosa estaba mucho mejor’—we didn’t pay as much for gas or groceries.”

While Biden has struggled to recover since the debate, it’s not for lack of trying during his Las Vegas swing.

With “Latinos con Biden-Harris” and “Nevada for Biden-Harris” signs lining a wall below talavera vases and volcanic stone molcajete bowls, Biden visited Lindo Michoacan—a popular Mexican restaurant known to host political organizing events—for a Univision radio interview before his ultimately canceled speech.

Waiting for him was Andres Ramirez, a veteran Democratic strategist long based in Las Vegas, along with local Democrats and labor organizers, who spoke for those within the party who believe the effort to oust the president has gone too far.

“I’ve been through enough election cycles to have seen this insider hyperventilating over and over again,” he told Vanity Fair. “Theoretical exercises make for fun games for political insiders, but this election cycle isn’t a game. Real people will be affected by the outcome of this election.

Primary season is over and Biden is our nominee. Efforts to undermine him only serve to help Trump and MAGA, which we know will be disastrous for our country.”

Asked how the president appeared at the restaurant, Ramirez said he was “great, energetic, lively.”

But one ally admitted the COVID diagnosis was suboptimal: “The optics don’t look good.”

After the announcement that the president would no longer be speaking, his allies insisted he is still the better choice, pointing to Biden’s accomplishments.

Mayra Macías, the executive director of Building Back Together, one of the top outside groups promoting Biden’s agenda, said there was excitement in the crowd to hear him speak and cheers when the president’s name was mentioned.

She noted that he was modeling leadership by canceling his speech after his COVID diagnosis and pointed to his other events during the Las Vegas trip—from NAACP to CSN and the Univision interview—as evidence that he was successfully engaging with people of color who live in Nevada. She was impressed with the new executive order announced Wednesday, and that the administration has moved to begin implementing the president’s last executive order on immigration, announced in June, in August.

“It was intentional to announce [the executive order] today so he could talk about them at Unidos,” she said.

Interestingly, while Biden gave a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) gala for Hispanic heritage month last fall, he has often delegated events aimed at Latino voters to Harris. In 2022, she spoke to the NALEO gathering, to UnidosUS last year, and to the influential, majority-Latino Culinary Union in Las Vegas in the new year.

Biden allies also said they were heartened to see UnidosUS and leaders from other grassroots groups organize a press conference against the far-right anti-immigration focus at the Republican convention, which has been complete with “Mass Deportation Now” signs, Senator Ted Cruz’s declaration that “We are facing an invasion on our southern border,” and the Republican Party’s 2024 platform alleging a “migrant crime epidemic” that has led to American cities being “hollowed-out, dystopian nightmares thanks to Joe Biden and Democrats.”

The belief among the president’s supporters is that when presented with the stark choice between Trump and Biden, and when the stakes are made clear, Democratic voters will come home.

Hector Sanchez Barba, the head of Mi Familia Vota, one of the groups present at the press conference, said Trump is “enemy number one” for immigrants, Latinos, and for democracy. Republicans “have allowed the party to be kidnapped by MAGA, anti-immigrant extremism,” he added.

In contrast, he pointed to a 2020 Vegas town hall in which he pushed Biden to commit to seven Latino policy priorities, including multiple Latino cabinet members. “He has delivered on all of them,” Sanchez Barba said.

Asked if there is a window for Biden to step aside, a source close to the campaign told Vanity Fair that, from the all-hands meeting the campaign held after the debate two weeks ago to now, the message has consistently been the same: “He’s not going anywhere.”

But the senior state lawmaker said they, and many others, still want to see a leadership change at the top of the ticket, specifically because Harris—and her VP choice—could potentially energize the party ahead of November.

“I don’t see a path to Joe Biden remaining in the White House,” the source said. “Why wouldn’t we want the first South Asian and first African American woman vice president as the nominee and an astronaut as the VP pick?” they added, referring to Harris and Arizona senator Mark Kelly, a retired NASA pilot.

“When’s the last time you saw an astronaut lose a campaign?” the state lawmaker asked.