Several Democrats running in competitive House districts this cycle are breaking ranks with President Biden, highlighting growing concerns that the incumbent could be a downside risk after his rocky debate performance in Atlanta last week.
Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) have stated they have no confidence in Biden’s victory, while Adam Frisch, a Democrat running to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R -Col.), said the president should withdraw.
His comments come amid growing speculation that more party members will call for Biden to resign following the fallout from last week’s debate. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Biden spoke with several allies as he weighed his candidacy, although the White House disputed that report.
“We have front-line elements who, even before this, would have been trying to distance themselves from Biden in any way,” said a House Democrat, who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic.
“The question is, do you want to further distance yourself by saying that the Democrats should have someone else at the top of the ticket?” added the legislator. “Because if that’s what they need to do, then we’re really in trouble. It is already a low-voting issue, especially in these states. How much worse it will be for them is the question.”
The president and his campaign have failed to calm Democratic anxiety about his candidacy, including long-standing concerns about his age and mental fitness, in the days following his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump.
Several days after the CNN-hosted event, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a memo projecting confidence about the state of the president’s candidacy, while also seeking to alleviate the concerns of pessimists.
But that has done little to calm fears among Democrats, especially amid a series of polls that show they may have cause for concern. On Wednesday, a poll from The New York Times and Siena College showed Trump widening his lead against Biden by 49% to 43% among likely voters.
And a separate poll released Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal showed Trump widening his lead over Biden to 6 points, up from 2 points since a similar poll in February was conducted.
For Democrats, the stakes could not be higher.
They already face a challenging map in the Senate, leading to growing expectations that Republicans will take over the upper chamber in November. And post-debate polls indicate Biden is trailing in the key battleground states he will need to win a second term.
These dynamics have placed increasing pressure on party leaders to bolster House races and flip control of the lower house to ensure there is a check on Republican power if Trump returns to the White House. The dynamic could very well lead donors to begin shifting resources as party members calculate where to invest most effectively in the midst of a tumultuous election cycle.
It will not be easy.
The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election hurdle, lists 39 Democratic House seats as vulnerable, compared to 30 Republican seats. Overall, the Hill/Decision Desk HQ election analyst currently gives Republicans a 66 percent chance of keeping the House in November.
Several prominent Democrats inside and outside Congress have already begun to increase pressure on Biden to drop out.
“I would ask him not to run in the name of — not just the party, but the country, because there’s so much at stake,” former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told The Hill on Monday when asked about how he would handle the issue if he were still in Congress.
Following his comments, Ryan publicly called on Biden to withdraw in an op-ed. The former member of Congress told The Hill that he is “really disappointed that people aren’t talking about this more,” arguing that keeping Biden as the Democratic nominee “risks us winning the House.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) became the second House Democrat to call on Biden to drop out of the race. Grijalva represents a safe district for Democrats, but other House members running in more competitive races have also sought to distance themselves from the incumbent.
“Biden’s poor debate performance was not a surprise,” Golden wrote in a op-ed for the Bangor Daily News. “It also hasn’t shaken me like it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: Although I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump will win. And I’m okay with that.”
Golden represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which Trump won by 7 points in 2020. The Democrat is currently the favorite to win the seat, according to the election forecast from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ.
Frisch, who is running for the seat in Colorado’s red-leaning 3rd Congressional District, became one of the first candidates to urge Biden to drop out.
“I thank President Biden for his years of service, but the path forward requires a new generation of leadership to move our country forward,” Frisch said Tuesday.
Adding to the Democrats’ problems, election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics changed your rankings for two states, moving Michigan from “leaning Democratic” to “leaning upward” and moving the more reliably blue Minnesota from “likely Democratic” to “leaning Democratic.” Democrats are defending at least four swing districts between the two states.
Most members did not define a clear position on Biden’s future, being careful not to get ahead of Biden’s campaign while also acknowledging the tumultuous path that awaits him after the debate.
Still, some express openness to another option – if it is available.
“I think it’s fair to say that the vice president makes a very compelling argument as to why Donald Trump is a threat and is unfit to be president, particularly as it relates to democracy and voting, voting rights and reproductive freedom, and those are going to be extremely important arguments in this election,” said a vulnerable House Democrat, when asked if he would feel more comfortable with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
