WILMINGTON, Del. For a defiant president, Joe Biden, the 2024 election depends on the public – not the Democrats on Capitol Hill. But the chorus of Democratic voices calling for him to withdraw is growing, from donors, strategists, lawmakers and his constituents who say he should quit.
The party did not follow him, even after the events that were organized as part of a blitz to restart his endangered campaign and show everyone that he was not too old to stay in office or do so for another four years.
On Saturday, a fifth Democratic lawmaker said outright that Biden should not run again. Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota said that after what she saw and heard in the debate with Republican rival Donald Trump, and Biden’s “lack of a forceful response” afterwards, he should step aside “and allow a new generation of leaders step forward.”
Craig scored one of the Democrats’ key suburban victories in the 2018 midterm elections and could be a barometer for districts that were vital for Biden in 2020.
As Democratic Convention approaching and with just four months to go until election day, neither side of the party can withstand this internecine drama much longer. But it is doomed to drag on until Biden steps aside or Democrats realize he won’t and learn to tamp down their concerns about the president’s chances against Trump.
There were signs that party leaders realized the impasse needs to end. Some of the oldest legislators, including Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi and Representative James Clyburn, were now publicly working to bring the party back to the president. Pelosi and Clyburn raised pointed questions about Biden after the debate.
“Biden is who our country needs,” Clyburn said Friday after the interview.
On Saturday, the Biden campaign said the president participated in a biweekly meeting with all 10 national campaign co-chairs to “discuss their shared commitment to winning the 2024 race.” Clyburn was among them.
Biden had a public agenda on Saturday, as he and his advisers moved away from the fervor of recent days. But the president will campaign again on Sunday in Philadelphia, with the intention of putting the debate behind him. And next week, the US is host the NATO summit and the president will hold a press conference.
Vice President Kamala Harris planned to campaign Saturday in New Orleans.
The president ABC Interview on Friday Night – billed as an effort to get the campaign back on track – elicited carefully worded expressions of disappointment from within the party ranks, and worse from those who spoke anonymously. Ten days after the crisis moment of the Biden-Trump debate began, Biden is entrenched.
Even within the White House there were concerns that the ABC interview would not be enough to turn the page.
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez has been texting lawmakers and administration officials encouraging them not to publicly air their concerns about the race and the president’s eligibility, according to a Democrat granted anonymity to discuss the situation.
Most Democrats have remained quieter in recent days, giving the president’s team space to show them — and Americans — that he is ready for office with rallies, interviews and flurry of public events.
But Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, without breaking with Biden at this time, are organizing meetings with members in the coming days to discuss options. It was clear that discontent among Democrats on Capitol Hill had not abated and, privately, many would prefer the president not run.
Many lawmakers are listening to voters back home and answering questions. One senator was working to rally others to ask him to step aside.
After the interview, one Democratic donor reported that many of the fellow donors he spoke with were furious, especially because the president refused to acknowledge the effects of his aging. Many of these donors are looking for a leadership change at the top of the ticket, said the person, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Biden roundly rejected calls on Friday to step aside from the race, saying telling voters at a rally in Wisconsin, reporters outside Air Force One and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Ruling it out completely,” he told reporters at the rally.
Biden rejected those calling for his resignation, saying instead that he spoke with 20 lawmakers and that they all encouraged him to stay in the race.
Concern about Biden’s physical condition over the next four years has been persistent. In an August 2023 poll in The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 77% of US adults said Biden was too old to be effective for another four years. Not only did 89% of Republicans say this, but so did 69% of Democrats. His approval rating is 38%.
Biden dismissed the poll, citing as evidence his 2020 surge to the nomination and victory over Trump, after initially faltering, and the 2022 midterm elections, when polls suggested Republicans would sweep but did not, largely in part because of the issue of abortion rights.
“I don’t believe it,” when he was reminded that he was behind in the polls. “I don’t think anyone is more qualified to be president or win this race than me.”
Biden rambled at times during the interview, which ABC said was shown in its entirety and without edits. Asked how he could turn the race around, Biden argued that one key would be large, energetic rallies like the one he held Friday in Wisconsin. When reminded that Trump routinely draws larger crowds, the president lashed out at his opponent.
“Trump is a pathological liar,” Biden said, accusing Trump of botching the federal response to the COVID pandemic and failing to create jobs. “Have you ever seen something Trump did that benefited someone else and not him?”
Republicans, however, fully support their candidate and support Trump, who at 78 years old has three years younger than Biden, has grown.
And this despite Trump’s 34 criminal convictions in a silent trialthat he was held responsible for Sexual abuse advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996and that his business was discovered to have involved in fraud.
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Miller and Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Saugatuck, Michigan, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
