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Joe Biden has made a series of gaffes in recent days that reinforced his reputation as an inconsistent campaigner and raised questions among some in the party about whether he is the strongest Democratic challenger to President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The former vice president’s bumpy ride has played out in national media and at events across Iowa, which hosts the first Democratic presidential primary balloting in less than six months.

The most recent missteps came on Thursday and Saturday as the 76-year-old Mr. Biden worked through a four-day tour of a state where anything short of a first-place finish could seriously damage his prospects for winning the party’s nomination next year.

The most recent slip came Saturday afternoon at a forum here organized by gun-control advocates, where he said he had met as vice president with students after the deaths of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

That massacre happened in 2018 and Mr. Biden left office in January 2017. He did meet with Parkland students in Washington, D.C., shortly after the shooting and had met as a vice president with survivors of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut.

The Parkland error followed a gaffe Thursday when he said “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” He quickly added: “wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids,” but the damage was done as it appeared that he had equated wealth and whiteness.

On Saturday, Mr. Biden said he “misspoke” and meant to say “wealthy.”

The former vice president also recently confused the locations of the two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, mentioning the “tragic events in Houston” and “also in Michigan.” He quickly corrected his errors.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump followed up with a tweet that said, in part: “Does anybody really believe he is mentally fit to be president? We are ‘playing’ in a very big and complicated world. Joe doesn’t have a clue!”