WASHINGTON — Monday’s Supreme Court decision giving Donald Trump immunity for past and potentially future presidential acts gave Democrats more urgency to defeat him, just as new polling showed that last week’s debate intensified voters’ concerns that President Joe Biden may not be the man to do it.

The dueling pieces of news underscored the conundrum the party has been staring down for months: Evidence that Trump will have unchecked power in a potential second term energizes the Democratic base. But the increasingly high import of the election makes the choice to stick with Biden appear all the more risky.

“You can’t afford to lose,” said Mark Buell, an influential Bay Area Democratic donor and fundraiser. “In either case, you’re still down to the risk assessment of who has a better chance — another candidate or Biden?”

Mark Gonzalez, the recently departed Los Angeles County Democratic Party chair and California state director for Biden’s 2020 campaign, said he spent the weekend calming nerves of fellow Democrats. The ruling Monday only reaffirmed the stakes to people who were concerned about Biden’s fitness for the job and poor political standing, he said. A CBS poll released Sunday showed a growing share of voters — 72% — say Biden does not have the cognitive ability to serve as president, compared with 49% who say that about Trump.

“The reality is that, whether they’re a delegate or an activist or an $5 donor, they’re afraid,” Gonzalez said of the people he spoke with this weekend. “They are scared that we need a stronger person to represent the Democratic Party so that we can prevail in November.”

Gonzalez said Monday “is a good reminder that we need to be able to ... be prepared, and know that the other side is going to do everything that they can to take us down. We cannot afford to lose democracy because of mistakes at this one debate.”

The Biden campaign scheduled a media call within minutes of Monday’s ruling in hopes of shifting attention from Biden’s poor debate on Thursday to Trump, whom they characterized as a singular threat to democracy. The ruling that he could not face prosecution for official acts would only embolden him to carry out threats to prosecute enemies and act like a dictator on his first day in office if he wins a second term, officials argued.

“This is not a drill,” said Harry Dunn, a police officer who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has become a surrogate for Democrats. “Donald Trump is the single greatest threat to the United States of America in a generation. We can’t let him anywhere near the Oval Office again.”

Quentin Fulks, principal deputy campaign manager for Biden-Harris 2024, pointed to a new Jan. 6-focused advertisement the campaign released Monday and to heightened efforts to organize volunteers in battleground states.

But many Democrats have urged the president to appear at more rallies and give more adversarial media interviews to demonstrate his vitality. Fulks, asked during the call whether Biden had any plans to increase his public engagement schedule with town halls and other unscripted encounters, said he had no changes to announce.

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