Biden's ability to win back Democratic skeptics is being tested at a dangerous time for his campaign
WASHINGTON DC: Despite a week-long campaign stop, interviews and an insistence that he is the best candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has not let up on the pressure to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
Biden will have major options before him this weekend that could shape the direction of the country and his party as the nation heads toward November’s election, with a GOP energized after the Republican nominating convention that will send Trump back to the White House.
Rep. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, added his name Saturday to the list of nearly three dozen congressional Democrats who say it’s time for Biden to drop out of the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, meanwhile, has won the support of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who told MSNBC on Saturday that the vice president is “ready to step up” to unite the party and take on Trump if Biden decides to back out. Warren said knowing that “gives me a lot of hope right now.”
More lawmakers are expected to weigh in in the coming days. Donors have raised concerns. And an organization calling on Biden to “Pass the Torch” has planned a rally Saturday outside the White House. Biden has insisted he’s all in.
“There’s no joy in acknowledging that he shouldn’t be our nominee in November,” said Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats who has urged Biden to drop out of the race. “But there’s too much at stake in this election, and we can’t risk the focus of the campaign being on anything other than Donald Trump.”
The stalemate has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month away from the Democratic National Convention that should be a unifying moment to nominate their incumbent president to take on Trump. Instead, the party is at a crossroads unlike anything seen in generations.
He is drawing a stark contrast to Republicans who, after years of bitter and chaotic infighting over Trump, have essentially embraced the former president’s far-right takeover of the Republican Party, despite his criminal conviction in a damages case and pending federal criminal indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
From his beach house in Delaware, Biden, 81, is in isolation for a COVID infection, but also politically with a small circle of family and close advisers. On Friday, White House physician Kevin O'Connor said the president still had a dry cough and hoarseness, but his COVID symptoms had improved.
The president's team has insisted he is ready to return to the campaign trail next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” outlined by Trump.
“Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “The stakes are high and the choice is clear. Together, we will win.”
But outside the Rehoboth enclave, debate and passions are intensifying.
A donor call of about 300 people on Friday was described as a waste of time by one participant, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation. While the person praised Harris, who spoke for five minutes, the rest of the time was taken up by others who dismissed donor concerns, according to the participant.
Democrats are not only divided over what Biden should do, they don’t even have a consensus on how to choose his successor.
Democrats agitating for Biden to leave don’t appear to have coalesced around a plan for what happens next, yet. Few lawmakers mentioned Harris in their statements, and some said they favored an open nomination process that would throw party approval behind a new nominee.
Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Peter Welch of Vermont have both called on Biden to drop out of the race and said they would favor an open nominating process at the convention.
“Having an open seat would strengthen whoever the final nominee is,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Other Democrats say it would be politically unthinkable to move beyond Harris, the nation’s first female vice president, who is Black and of Southeast Asian descent, and logistically impractical, with a virtual nominating vote planned for early next month, before the Democratic convention opens in Chicago on Aug. 19.
Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, who has called for Biden to step aside, has explicitly endorsed Harris as a replacement.
“To give Democrats a strong and viable path to win the White House, I am calling on President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice President Harris to step up to become the Democratic nominee for president,” McCollum said in his statement.
It’s unclear what else, if anything, the president could do to reverse course and win back Democratic lawmakers and voters, who are wary of his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term after his faltering debate performance last month.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say Biden should drop out of the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, a new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds, soundly contradicting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still behind him even as some “big names” are turning against him.
At the same time, a majority of Democrats believe Kamala Harris would do a good job in first place, according to another poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden, who sent a challenging letter to Democrats in Congress vowing to stay in the race, has not yet visited Capitol Hill to rally support, an absence noted by senators and representatives.
Last week, the president had a series of virtual conversations with various parliamentary groups, some of which ended badly.
On a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, one Democrat, Rep. Mike Levin of California, told Biden he should step aside. On another call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Biden became defensive when Rep. Jared Huffman of California asked him to consider meeting with top party leaders to discuss a path forward.
Huffman was one of four Democratic lawmakers who called on Biden on Friday to step aside.
At the same time, Biden still has strong supporters. On Friday, he received the support of the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and has the support of leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
