Top-ranking Democrats in Congress have reportedly expressed concern regarding President Joe Biden’s desire to remain the Democratic presidential nominee for 2024, telling him that his decision to stay in the race despite the public’s worries regarding his mental acuity will hurt the party’s chances in congressional contests.
According to reporting from The Washington Post, which cited multiple sources with knowledge of the conversations, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), the House minority leader for the Democrats, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), the Senate majority leader, privately told Biden in separate meetings that his candidacy not only jeopardizes the party’s chance of winning the White House, but threatens Democrats down the ballot.
The conversations took place last week (with Jeffries meeting with the president on Thursday and Schumer meeting with him on Saturday), before Biden’s current COVID-19 diagnosis was announced.
The Post also reported that a separate, unnamed person who is considered close to Biden told the president to step aside to preserve his legacy and prevent another Trump term. Biden reportedly told that person that he disagreed with them and that he still considered himself the best person for the job of defeating Trump.
New polling shows that this is no longer the case, with at least four Democratic Party options doing better than Biden in a general election scenario against Trump.
Separate reporting from CNN indicates that Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi (California), the former speaker of the House who is still considered highly influential in her conference, also told Biden in a private conversation that his chances of winning were slim. Sources with knowledge of that conversation did not indicate whether Pelosi told Biden he should drop out.
And on Thursday, it was reported that former President Barack Obama, who Biden served under as vice president from 2009 to 2017, has expressed serious misgivings about Biden’s ability to win this fall, with Obama telling allies close to him that Biden needs to seriously consider dropping out of the race.
The news of these conversations between Biden and high-ranking Democrats, as well as the revelations about Obama’s feelings on the matter, comes on the heels of other troubling reports for the campaign, including:
- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), an influential party member who is running for U.S. Senate, stating his desire for Biden to step aside on Wednesday, saying that he has “serious concerns” about the president’s ability to mount a winning campaign and that it’s time to “pass the torch;”
- Democratic donors reportedly warning the campaign that donations are going to seize up if Biden remains the presidential nominee; and
- an Associated Press/NORC poll showing that two-thirds of Democratic voters (65 percent) believe Biden should drop out of the race, with only 3 in 10 Democrats saying they felt confident he could effectively serve as president for another term.
Calls for Biden to exit the race to make way for a new Democratic candidate intensified after his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. During that debate, the president appeared confused and struggled to articulate his thoughts, leading to speculation that he may not have the mental acuity to continue the campaign — let alone run the executive branch of government for another four years.
Since that debate, Trump has widened what was once a smaller lead against Biden, according to an aggregate of polling data from FiveThirtyEight. The night before their interaction, the two were nearly tied, with Trump leading Biden in the average poll by just 0.1 points. As of Thursday morning, that split has grown to a 2.1-point lead favoring Trump.
Other reporting has indicated that Biden is reconsidering his insistence upon staying in the race.
“President Biden is more ‘receptive’ to the push for him to leave the ticket,” and “has gone from saying ‘[Vice President Kamala Harris] can’t win’ to asking if Kamala Harris can win,” CNN’s Kasie Hunt said on X.
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