Democratic calls grow louder for Biden to leave race
Joe Biden and his team are fighting to stop a stream of Democratic defections from turning into a mutiny, with the president planning to use a press conference to prove he is capable of winning in November.
President Biden and his team were in a fight to stop a stream of Democratic defections from turning into a mutiny Thursday, with his top advisers visiting Capitol Hill and the president planning to use a press conference to prove he is capable of winning in November.
Democrats have continued to break with their 81-year-old standard-bearer following a calamitous debate and public appearances that haven’t reassured concerned voters and colleagues about his fitness for the campaign trail or a second term. Biden has pledged to keep running, but many lawmakers have pushed him to reconsider, with a handful going so far as to publicly call for him to step aside in favor of another candidate.
Reps. Hillary Scholten (D., Mich.) and Brad Schneider (D., Ill.) became the 10th and 11th House members to say Biden should quit. “For the sake of our democracy, he must pass the torch to a new candidate for the 2024 election,” Scholten, who faces a tough re-election fight this fall, said Thursday on social media.
Other Democrats were subdued. “I want him to do what he thinks is best for him and for our country,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D., N.J.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has largely backed Biden’s desire to keep running but whose support showed signs of softening.
Rep. Colin Allred (D., Texas), another caucus member and a candidate for a Texas Senate seat, said he wouldn’t do a hallway interview about Biden. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D., Fla.), a staunch Biden backer, said she had nothing to say.
“I’m riding with Biden no matter what his decision is...I’m with him,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.), who helped salvage Biden’s campaign in 2020. “I am taking him at his word. I have no idea what’s going on in his head,” he said.
Biden is scheduled to hold a press conference to cap several days of meetings with world leaders on Thursday evening (8.30am Friday morning AEST), an event designed to show he can engage spontaneously with the press, after his halting debate performance. As of the end of April, he had given fewer interviews and news conferences than any of his recent predecessors, according to data collected by Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor at Towson University.
Top Biden campaign aides acknowledged in a Thursday memo that the debate was a “setback” but said internal and external polling still shows a tight race in key battleground states. The campaign said winning the blue-wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania “is the clearest pathway” to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
There is “no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump,” the campaign said.
Biden has said he would step aside only if the “Lord almighty” asks him. On Thursday, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti met with Senate Democrats behind closed doors, where they tried to convince Democrats to stay on board.
They came at the invitation of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who is under pressure from donors and members of his own conference. Schumer has said he supports Biden but has made only brief remarks to that effect amid broad anxiety among Democratic senators.
Senators were mostly tight-lipped coming out of the meeting, saying they had been asked to keep the discussion private.
Before the meeting, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said Biden “needs to be convincing and persuasive to the American people in more than just one press conference, meeting, or speech and he has to really persuade the American people about what’s at stake this November.” After the session with Biden’s aides, Blumenthal said he still needed to see more data and analytics proving that Biden can win. “My concerns remain,” he said.
Some Democratic senators up for re-election skipped the meeting, including Sens. Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tim Kaine of Virginia. “I said all along, I personally think my job is to do my job and that’s what I’ve been doing,” Brown said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Democratic senator to publicly say Biden should exit the race. Welch said Vice President Kamala Harris would be a capable replacement.
“For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” Welch wrote in the Washington Post. “The national conversation is focused on President Biden’s age and capacity. Only he can change it.” Democrats have said that Biden, himself a former senator, needs to engage with lawmakers directly, essential to piercing what they see as a bubble wrap shielding him from political reality. Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) earlier this week said Biden needed “to hear directly from a broader array of voices.” On Wednesday, after a meeting with Biden’s advisers was instead put on the books, Warner tersely said that “I’m not going to answer anything.” “In every White House, there’s a danger of insularity and it’s important to make sure everybody’s fighting against that insularity,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.), who doesn’t believe Biden can beat Trump.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) on Wednesday distanced herself from Biden, declining to say if she supported him remaining the nominee. “It’s up to the president to decide if he’s going to run,” she said on MSNBC, pressing him to make a decision quickly.
Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who has defended Biden, said he found Pelosi’s comments baffling since Biden has already said he won’t quit. “It’s been very clear. He said it: ‘I’m in.’ It’s closed. It’s a strange thing for her to say,” he said on CNN.
A person close to Pelosi said the former speaker is hearing constantly from donors who are losing faith in Biden. The person said Pelosi’s focus is on winning the House back for Democrats, and she is willing to distance herself from Biden if needed.
Filmmaker and actor George Clooney -- who co-hosted a major fundraiser for the president last month that featured Biden and former President Barack Obama -- wrote in the New York Times that Biden should quit the race to give Democrats a chance of defeating Republican Donald Trump.
Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), who was one of the first House Democrats to call on Biden to step aside, said the scrutiny on Biden’s performance at the NATO press conference Thursday night just confirms the need to replace him at the top of the ticket as quickly as possible.
“I mean really, we’re having a serious conversation about, you know, can our candidate get through a press conference? The mere fact that we’re having that conversation at this point in the campaign sort of tells you everything you need to know about what needs to be done,” Smith said.
A new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 56% of Democrats say Biden should end his candidacy, compared with 42% who say he should continue. Asked about who would be best to take Biden’s place, 29% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents mentioned Harris, while 7% said California Gov. Gavin Newsom and 4% named former first lady Michelle Obama.
Despite the concerns about Biden, the poll found the president tied with Trump among all registered voters, with 46% each.
Natalie Andrews, Ken Thomas and Katy Stech Ferek contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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