Biden's ability to win back skeptical Democrats is being tested at a dangerous moment for his campaign
WASHINGTON DC: Despite a week of campaign stops, interviews and insistence that he is the best candidate to confront Republican Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has not eased the pressure on him to drop out of the 2024 race.
Biden faces weighty options this weekend that could set the direction for the country and his party as the nation heads toward the November election with an energized GOP after the Republican nominating convention to send Trump back to the White House.
Rope. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, on Saturday added his name to the list of nearly three dozen congressional Democrats who say it's time for Biden to leave the race. California urged Biden to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, meanwhile, received support from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who told MSNBC on Saturday that the vice president is “prepared to step up” to unify the party and take on Trump should Biden decide to bow out. Warren said knowing that “gives me a lot of hope right now.”
More lawmakers are expected to speak out in the coming days. Donors have raised concerns. And an organization urging Biden to “Pass the Torch” planned a rally Saturday outside the White House. Biden has insisted he is all in.
“There is no joy in the admission that he should not be our nominee in November,” said Democratic Representative Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats who urged Biden to drop out of the race. “But the stakes of this election are too high and we cannot risk the focus of the campaign being anything other than Donald Trump.”
The standoff 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 its incumbent to confront Trump. Instead, the party is at a crossroads not seen in generations.
It creates a stark juxtaposition with Republicans who, after years of bitter and chaotic battles over Trump, have largely embraced the former president's far-right takeover of the GOP, despite his criminal conviction in a hush money case and pending federal charges for trying to overthrow the 2020 election before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
From his beach home in Delaware, Biden, 81, is isolating with a covid infection, but also politically with a small circle of family and close advisers. White House physician Kevin O'Connor said Friday that the president still had a dry cough and hoarseness, but his Covid symptoms had improved.
The president's team insisted he is ready to return to the campaign trail next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” put forth 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 intensify.
A donor call of about 300 people last Friday was described as a waste of time by one attendee, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation. While the person was free for Harris, who spoke for five minutes, the rest of the time was filled by others brushing off the donor's concerns, according to the attendee.
Not only are Democrats divided over what Biden should do, they also lack consensus on how to choose a successor.
Democrats agitating for Biden to leave don't appear to have coalesced around a plan for what would happen next, for now. Very few of the lawmakers have mentioned Harris in their statements, and some have said they favor an open nomination process that would throw the party's support behind a new candidate.
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 congressional nominating process.
“Having it open would strengthen whoever is the ultimate nominee,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Other Democrats say bypassing Harris, the nation's first female vice president, who is black and Southeast Asian, would be politically unthinkable and logistically impossible with a virtual nominating vote planned for early next month, before the Democratic convention opens in Chicago on August 19th.
Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, who has called on Biden to step aside, explicitly endorsed Harris as a replacement.
“To give Democrats a strong, viable path to winning the White House, I'm calling on President Biden to release his delegates and give Vice President Harris the opportunity to step forward to become the Democratic presidential nominee,” McCollum said in his statement.
It's unclear what else, if anything, the president could do to reverse course and win back lawmakers and Democratic voters, who are wary of his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term after his aborted debate performance last month.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate another candidate, according to a new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, sharply undermining his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” turn against him.
Meanwhile, a majority of Democrats think Kamala Harris would do a good job in the top slot, according to a separate AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Biden, who sent a defiant letter to congressional Democrats vowing to stay in the race, has yet to visit Capitol Hill to drum up support, an absence noted by senators and representatives.
The president conducted a round of virtual conversations with various caucuses over the past week — some of which ended badly.
During a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, one Democrat, Rep. Mike Levin of California, to Biden that he should step aside. During another with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Biden became defensive when Rep. Jared Huffman of California asked him to consider meeting with top party leaders about the way forward.
Huffman was one of four Democratic lawmakers who on Friday called on Biden to step aside.
Meanwhile, Biden still has strong backs. He received an endorsement Friday from the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and has the support of leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
