Biden's ability to win back skeptical Democrats is being tested at a dangerous time for his campaign
WASHINGTON DC: Despite a week of campaign stops, interviews and insistence that he is the best candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has not eased his drive to drop out of the 2024 race.
Biden has important choices before him this weekend that could shape the direction of the country and his party as the nation heads to the November election with an energized GOP after the Republican nominating convention to 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 leave the race. The Californian asked Biden to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, Harris 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 fight Trump if Biden decides to retire. Warren said knowing that “gives me a lot of hope right now.”
More MPs are expected to speak in the coming days. Donors have expressed concerns. And an organization calling on Biden to “pass the torch” planned a rally in front of the White House on Saturday. Biden insisted he was all in.
“There's no joy in admitting that he shouldn't be our nominee in November,” said Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats who called for Biden to drop out of the race. “But the stakes in this election are too high, and we can't risk the focus of the campaign being anything other than Donald Trump.”
The showdown has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month away from the Democratic National Convention, which is supposed to be a unifying moment to nominate its incumbent to face Trump. Instead, the party is at a crossroads not seen for generations.
It creates a stark juxtaposition with Republicans who, after years of bitter and chaotic infighting over Trump, have essentially accepted the former president's takeover of the far-right former GOP president despite his criminal conviction in a hush money case and pending federal criminal charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 election prior to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
From his beach house in Delaware, Biden, 81, is isolating himself 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 has a dry cough and hoarseness, but that his COVID symptoms have improved.
The president's team insisted he was ready to return to the campaign trail next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” presented by Trump.
“Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the polls,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “The stakes are high and the choice is clear. Together, we will win.”
But outside the Rehoboth enclave the debate and passions are heating up.
A call to donors with about 300 people on Friday was described as a waste of time by one attendee, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation. While the person complimented Harris, who spoke for five minutes, the rest of the time was taken up by others who brushed aside donors' concerns, according to the attendee.
Not only are Democrats divided over what Biden should do, they also lack a consensus on how to choose a successor.
Democrats agitating for Biden to go don't seem to have coalesced around a plan for what happens next, just yet. Very few lawmakers mentioned Harris in their remarks, and some said they favored an open nomination process that would throw party support behind a new candidate.
Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Peter Welch of Vermont both called on Biden to drop out of the race and said they would favor an open nominating process at the convention.
“Having it open would strengthen whoever the top nominee is,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Other Democrats say it would be politically inconceivable to pass on Harris, the nation's first female vice president, who is black and Southeast Asian, and logistically impossible, with a virtual nominating vote being planned for early next month, ahead of the opening of the Democratic convention in Chicago on August 19.
Rep. Minnesota's Betty McCollum, who called on Biden to withdraw, explicitly endorsed Harris as a replacement.
“To give Democrats a strong and viable path to winning the White House, I'm calling on President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice President Harris to step forward to become the Democratic nominee for president,” he McCollum said in his statement.
It's unclear what else the president could do, if anything, to reverse course and win back Democratic lawmakers and voters who fear his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term after his halting performance in the debates 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 on him.
At the same time, most Democrats think Kamala Harris would do a good job at the top, 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 has conducted a round of virtual conversations with various caucuses over the past week — some of which have ended badly.
During a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, one Democrat, Rep. Mike Levin of California, told Biden he should step down. During another meeting 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 called on Biden to step down on Friday.
At the same time, Biden still has strong supporters. He received an endorsement Friday from the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and has the backing of leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
