Democratic leaders called on President Biden and his campaign Wednesday to provide convincing evidence of a viable path to victory amid a steady tide of bad battleground state polling and growing concerns that he cannot defeat former president Donald Trump in November.<\/p>\n
The calls came as top union leaders expressed grave concerns about his candidacy, more members of Congress and other Democrats called on him to step aside, and even members of Biden\u2019s senior campaign staff began to exchange doubt about his prospects.<\/p>\n
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, some of the country\u2019s union leaders \u2014 many of whom are strident backers of Biden \u2014 said Americans\u2019 doubts about Biden\u2019s ability to do the job were damaging his candidacy and repeatedly asked Biden campaign officials for their plan to defeat Trump, according to two people familiar with their comments, who like others for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private comments. Two of the most outspoken leaders were Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, and Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, two of Biden\u2019s biggest labor allies.<\/p>\n
In a statement later Wednesday, AFL-CIO leadership \u201cunanimously voted to reaffirm its commitment\u201d to Biden, saying, \u201cNo president has been more invested in helping workers than Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior campaign staff have started to take a more pessimistic view of Biden\u2019s chances, even as they continue to fan out in a full-court blitz to push the campaign forward and reassure allies of the president\u2019s potential to rebound.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverwhelmingly a majority of senior campaign staff are despondent and don\u2019t see a path,\u201d said a Democratic strategist familiar with the conversations, who like many others for this story requested anonymity to speak frankly about internal deliberations. A second person familiar with the discussions did not dispute the description.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can either worry or we can work, and this team is doing the work that wins elections,\u201d Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Democrats say the defections are likely to increase in coming days, with lawmakers and donors privately signaling that, by the end of the week, they may publicly call for Biden to drop out. They argue they do not want to embarrass Biden during the ongoing NATO summit in Washington while also giving him time to come to that conclusion on his own.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Democratic senator to call on Biden to drop out, writing in a Washington Post op-ed that he should do so \u201cfor the good of the country\u201d because of the danger posed by Trump. In addition, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), one of the party\u2019s most vulnerable members, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Antonio Delgado, the lieutenant governor of New York who formerly represented a swing district in Congress, also called on Biden to step aside.<\/p>\n
At the first presidential debate with Trump on June 27, Biden was unable to complete sentences, often spoke haltingly and, at times, seemed confused about what question he was trying to answer. Democrats panicked over the performance, raising questions about his ability to serve another four years as president and renewing questions about the 81-year-old\u2019s mental acuity.<\/p>\n
Biden and his campaign continue to publicly maintain that he will not leave the race and that he is positioned to beat Trump in an election that will take place in 117 days. The Biden campaign told Democratic senators Wednesday that campaign chair Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, senior campaign adviser Mike Donilon and White House adviser Steve Ricchetti would meet Thursday for a briefing on the path forward. The Biden campaign said it conducted polling immediately after the debate that found no significant movement in the battleground states for Biden.<\/p>\n
A Democratic senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid view, said that, if the campaign team tells senators that there has been little to no deterioration in the president\u2019s position, \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody will believe it.\u201d He added that senators will be looking for \u201cconvincing evidence that they can turn this thing around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate Bedingfield, the deputy campaign manager on Biden\u2019s 2020 campaign and former White House communications director, gave voice to private frustrations in the party that the campaign has not yet offered an empirical case for Biden recovering from his debate setback and then gaining enough momentum to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump rally around it,\u201d Bedingfield wrote on social media. \u201cPeople want to see the path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron Klain, a longtime Biden adviser and former White House chief of staff, said there was unanimity among Biden\u2019s team that he remains the best candidate to defeat Trump. \u201cHe wins in 2024 as he did in 2020 \u2014 because his personal values and character ultimately prevail against Trump,\u201d Klain wrote in a text message.<\/p>\n
Democrats have been privately sketching out possible scenarios and the timing of them, should Biden decide to leave the race, including Biden possibly endorsing the nomination of Vice President Harris. One Democratic strategist said time is of the essence: \u201cEvery iteration of this, earlier is better,\u201d avoiding a \u201cmad scramble\u201d near or at the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Biden announced in a letter to Democratic allies Monday that he was \u201cfirmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.\u201d But former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appeared Wednesday on MSNBC\u2019s Morning Joe \u2014 a show that Biden is known to watch regularly \u2014 where she described Biden\u2019s continued candidacy as an open question.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,\u201d said Pelosi, who remains a member of the House since relinquishing her speakership. \u201cWe\u2019re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.\u201d<\/p>\n
House Democratic concerns are anchored in polling from before the debate that showed Biden already trailing Trump in districts that he won comfortably in 2020, with approval ratings in the low 4os, according to a person who has seen the data. In both House and Senate polls, down-ballot Democrats continue to outperform Biden in ballot tests.<\/p>\n
An AARP poll released Tuesday \u2014 which was conducted by polling firms that work for the Biden and Trump campaigns \u2014 showed Biden trailing Trump in Wisconsin by six points in a five-way contest that included third-party candidates. Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by less than a percentage point in 2020. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) maintained a lead of three points over her Republican opponent, the businessman Eric Hovde, in the AARP poll.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is just a drag everywhere,\u201d said another Democrat working on campaigns this cycle who has seen private polling across the country.<\/p>\n
The campaign has since started another round of polling this week, though the results have not come back, said people familiar with the operation. Biden also announced he would sit down for a 9 p.m. interview Monday with NBC News anchor Lester Holt in Austin during the first night of the Republican nominating convention.<\/p>\n
National public polls showed Trump with a slight lead before the debate \u2014 a sharp contrast to the lead of about four points Biden enjoyed over Trump at the same point in the 2020 campaign. Since the debate, national polls have showed a 2\u00bd-point average shift in Trump\u2019s direction, according to a Washington Post average of polling.<\/p>\n
Democrats are particularly concerned about Biden\u2019s diminished status compared to the 2020 campaign. At this point in that cycle, he polled 9 points ahead of Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Biden won the national popular vote by 4\u00bd points that November. Trump now leads the same average by more than 3 points.<\/p>\n
Some Democrats have grown concerned in recent days about the pace of fundraising for Biden and the independent groups supporting his campaign, as high-dollar bundlers for the president have shown reluctance to work their networks or have refused to follow through with donations. The campaign was bringing in more than $3 million a day after the debate, according to people familiar with the internal numbers. Donations have since dropped off and campaign advisers are awaiting the Republican convention next week to see if enthusiasm returns.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty among high-dollar donors about giving to independent groups has made it \u201chard to balance the checkbook,\u201d said one fundraiser involved in the effort. \u201cI think a lot of the large-dollar donors are going to move their funding to the House and the Senate. If Biden is going to stay in, he has got to pray that the small-dollar donors come through.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, George Clooney, the Academy Award-winning actor and longtime Democratic donor, said Biden should drop out of the presidential race. Clooney \u2014 who co-hosted a fundraiser for Biden last month in Los Angeles \u2014 said the president \u201cwasn\u2019t even the Joe Biden of 2020\u201d at that event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I\u2019ve spoken with in private,\u201d Clooney wrote in the New York Times. \u201cEvery single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThe dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauren Kaori Gurley and Liz Goodwin contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Democratic leaders called on President Biden and his campaign Wednesday to provide convincing evidence of a viable path to victory amid a steady tide of bad battleground state polling and growing concerns that he cannot defeat former president Donald Trump in November. The calls came as top union leaders expressed grave concerns about his candidacy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}