Rep. Seth Moulton (Massachusetts) on Thursday became the third House Democrat to publicly call on President Biden to drop out of the presidential race, following a poor debate performance last week that left his allies shaken.
“President Biden has done our country an enormous service, but now is the time for him to follow in the footsteps of one of our founding fathers, George Washington, and step aside to allow new leaders to rise up and run against [former President Trump],” Moulton said on radio station WBUR on Thursday.
Moulton, who competed against Biden for the 2020 presidential nomination, said Wednesday that his party should look at “all viable options” as questions arise about Biden’s ability to remain at the top of the Democratic ticket.
“When your current strategy isn’t working, it’s rarely the right decision to double down. President Biden will not get any younger,” Moulton said in a statement Wednesday.
The White House insisted Wednesday that Biden would not drop out of the presidential race, and party leaders publicly supported him. Biden said in a fundraising email Wednesday that no one is “pushing” him “out” of the race.
“I am the candidate of the Democratic Party,” according to the fundraising email. “No one is kicking me out. I’m not leaving, I’m in this race until the end and WE are going to win this election. If that’s all you need to hear, please contribute some money to help [Vice President Harris] and I will defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Still, this week cracks began to appear in Democrats’ support for Biden. Centrist Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) said they believe Trump will beat Biden in November. And several Democrats privately told The Hill that conversations about Biden’s position at the top of the ticket have been ongoing behind the scenes since the debate.
Moulton joins his House colleagues Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in publicly calling on Biden to withdraw from the race.
“President Biden continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls trailed Donald Trump. I hoped the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It didn’t happen,” Doggett said in a statement. “Instead of reassuring voters, the President has failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
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