WASHINGTON – Critical days ahead, President Joe Biden is facing the harsh reality that many Democrats at the highest levels want him to consider how stepping aside from the 2024 elections to make way for a new candidate at the top of the ticket could be the party’s best chance of avoiding widespread losses in November.
Isolated as he fights a COVID infection at his Delaware beach house, Biden’s already small circle of confidants before his fumbled debate dwindled further. The president, who has insisted he can defeat Republicans donald trumpHe is with his family and some longtime advisors as he considers whether to give in to growing pressure to quit.
The Biden For President campaign is calling for a full team meeting for Friday. At the same time, the Democratic National Committee The Republican Party’s regulatory arm expects to meet on Friday, moving forward with plans for a virtual call before Aug. 7 to nominate the presidential pick, ahead of the party’s convention later this month in Chicago.
“President Biden deserves the respect of having important family conversations with caucus members and colleagues in the House and Senate and Democratic leadership and not fighting leaks and statements to the press,” said Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, the closest friend close to Biden in Congress and his campaign co-chair, told the Associated Press.
These are crucial days for the president and his party: Trump ended with enthusiasm Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. And Democrats, in race time, are considering the extraordinary possibility of Biden stepping aside for a new presidential candidate before his own convention.
Amid the turmoil, most Democrats think the vice president Kamala Harris I would be a good president.
A new research from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job in the top spot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.
Democrats at the highest levels have made a critical push for Biden to rethink his election bid, with former President Barack Obama expressing concerns to allies and Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi privately telling Biden that the party could lose its ability to take office. control of the House if he does not step aside from the 2024 race.
On Thursday night, Montana Sen. Jon Tester became the second Democrat in the House — and now among nearly two dozen in Congress — calling on him to withdraw, saying, “Biden should not seek re-election to another term. ”.
Campaign officials said Biden was even more committed to staying in the race, even as calls for him to do so grew. And senior West Wing aides have had no internal discussions or conversations with the president about Biden dropping out.
But there is also time to reconsider. Biden has been told that the campaign is having trouble raising money, and top Democrats see an opportunity, since he is away from the campaign for a few days, to encourage his departure. In his office, some are resigned to the likelihood of him losing in November.
Reporting in this story is based, in part, on information from nearly a dozen people who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive private deliberations. The Washington Post first reported Obama’s involvement.
Biden, 81, tested positive for COVID-19 while traveling in Las Vegas earlier this week and is experiencing “mild symptoms” including “general malaise” due to the infection, the White House said.
The president himself, in a radio interview recorded shortly before testing positive, rejected the idea that it was too late to recover politically, telling Univision’s Luis Sandoval that many people only focus on the November elections in September.
“All the talk about who’s leading and where and how, it’s like, you know — everything so far between Trump and I has been basically even,” he said in an excerpt from the interview released Thursday.
But in Congress, Democratic lawmakers began having private conversations about the possibility of lining up behind Harris as an alternative. One lawmaker said Biden’s own advisers can’t come to a unanimous recommendation on what he should do. More people in Congress are considering joining others who have called for Biden to step down. Some prefer an open process for choosing a new presidential candidate.
“It’s clear the issue is not going away,” said Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, the other Senate Democrat who has said publicly that Biden should drop out of the race. Welch said the current state of partisan angst — with panicked lawmakers and donor outrage — was “not sustainable.”
However, influential Democrats, including the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries are sending signals of strong concern.
Certainly, many want Biden to stay in the race. But among Democrats nationwide, nearly two-thirds say Biden should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This drastically contradicts Biden’s post-debate claim that “middle Democrats” are still with him.
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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, Ellen Knickmeyer in Aspen, Colorado, Steve Peoples in Milwaukee and Josh Boak, Will Weissert, Mary Clare Jalonick, Seung Min Kim and Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.
