Bernie Sanders urges Democrats to stay the course with Biden.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the progressive leader who was President Biden’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination in 2020, urged skittish Democrats on Saturday to rally around the embattled president in a guest essay in The New York Times.

Mr. Sanders wrote that despite his policy disagreements with the president, Mr. Biden still gave Democrats the best chance of defeating former President Donald J. Trump in the November election.

He contended that Mr. Biden’s calamitous debate performance on June 27 was not the deal-breaker that some politicians and pundits have said it was as they have called for Mr. Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“Yes. I know: Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate.”

Mr. Sanders, 82, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and a onetime colleague of Mr. Biden, said the party needed to put an end to the back-and-forth over Mr. Biden’s flaws as a candidate, describing the infighting as a “circular firing squad.”

“Enough!” he wrote. “Mr. Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. And with an effective campaign that speaks to the needs of working families, he will not only defeat Mr. Trump but beat him badly. It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking.”

At least 19 Democrats in the House and one in the Senate have called on Mr. Biden to end his campaign since the debate, arguing that he cannot recover from his troubling performance and could cost the party both chambers of Congress in November.

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