(FILES) US President Barack Obama (R) with Vice President Joe Biden addresses, for the first time publicly, the shock election of Donald Trump as his successor, on November 9, 2016, at the White House in Washington, DC. | AFP
WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama has privately expressed concerns to Democrats about President Joe Biden’s candidacy, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi privately warned Biden that Democrats could lose the ability to seize control of the House if he doesn’t step away from the 2024 race, according to several people familiar with the sensitive internal matters.
Pelosi also showed polling to Biden that she argued shows he likely can’t defeat Republican Donald Trump — though the former speaker countered Thursday in a sharp statement that the “feeding frenzy” from anonymous sources “misrepresents any conversations” she may have had with the president.
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With time racing, Pelosi and Obama are among Democrats at the highest levels who are making a critical push for Biden to reevaluate his reelection bid, as unease grows at the White House and within the campaign at a fraught moment for the president and his party.
Obama has conveyed to allies that Biden needs to consider the viability of his campaign but has also made clear that the decision is one Biden needs to make. The former president has taken calls in recent days from members of congressional leadership, Democratic governors and key donors to discuss their concerns about his former vice president.
Biden has insisted he’s not backing down, adamant that he’s the candidate who beat Trump before and will do so again. Pressed about reports that Biden might be softening to the idea of leaving the race, his deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Thursday: “He is not wavering on anything.”
If anything, in recent days the president has become more committed to staying in the race, according to one person familiar with the internal discussions.
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This story is based in part on reporting from more than half a dozen people who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive private deliberations. The Washington Post first reported on Obama’s involvement.
Influential Democrats signal of concern
Influential Democrats from the highest levels of the party apparatus, including congressional leadership headed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are sending signals of concern. Some Democrats hope Biden, off the campaign trail after testing positive for COVID-19, will take a fresh look at the trajectory of the race and his legacy over the coming days.
Using mountains of data showing Biden’s standing could seriously damage the ranks of Democrats in Congress, frank conversations in public and private and now the president’s own few days off, many Democrats see an opportunity to encourage a reassessment.
If Democrats are seriously preparing the extraordinary step of replacing Biden and shifting Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, this weekend will be critical to changing the president’s mind, other people familiar with the private conversations said.
One said it’s now or never ahead of a planned virtual roll call to nominate the party’s choice in early August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Over the past week, Schumer and Jeffries, both of New York, have spoken privately to the president, candidly laying out the concerns of Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Control of House, Senate at stake
Control of the House and Senate is at stake, and leaders are keenly aware that a Republican sweep in November could launch Trump’s agenda for years to come.
Separately, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, spoke with the president last week armed with fresh data. The campaign chief specifically aired the concerns of front-line Democrats seeking election to the House.
And on Wednesday, California Rep. Adam Schiff, a close ally of Pelosi, called for Biden to drop his reelection bid, saying he believes it’s time to “pass the torch.”
Biden, in a radio interview taped just before he tested positive for COVID-19, dismissed the idea it was too late for him to recover politically, telling Univision’s Luis Sandoval that many people don’t focus on the November election until September.
“All the talk about who’s leading and where and how, is kind of, you know — everything so far between Trump and me has been basically even,” he said in an excerpt of the interview released Thursday.
Some national polls do show a close race, though others suggest Trump with a lead. And some state polls have contained warning signs for Biden, including a recent New York Times/Siena poll that suggested a competitive race in Virginia, a state Biden won in 2020.
Democrats have limited time
While the attention to Biden has subsided somewhat, particularly after last weekend’s Trump assassination attempt and as the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee, Democrats know they have limited time to resolve the party turmoil after the president’s faltering debate performance last month.
To be sure, many want Biden to stay in the race. And the Democratic National Committee is pushing ahead with plans for a virtual vote to formally make Biden its nominee in the first week of August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19.
Late Wednesday, ABC News reported new details about Biden’s private meeting over the weekend with Schumer at the president’s beach home in Delaware. It said Schumer told the president it would be “better for the Democratic Party and better for the country if he were to bow out.” A Schumer spokesperson called the report “idle speculation.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden told Schumer, as well as Jeffries, that “he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.”
Biden and 2/3 of Democrats nationwide
But among Democrats nationwide, nearly two-thirds say Biden should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. That sharply undercuts Biden’s post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 while traveling Wednesday in Las Vegas and is experiencing “mild symptoms” including “general malaise” from the infection, the White House said. The president, who had spent the past several days campaigning, had already been scheduled to return to his Delaware beach home even before the diagnosis.
Schiff’s announcement brings to nearly 20 the number of Democratic members of Congress calling on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Schiff is a prominent Democrat on his own, and his statement also matters because of his proximity to Pelosi.
In response to Schiff’s comments, the Biden campaign pointed to what it called “extensive support” for him and his reelection bid from members of Congress in key swing states, as well as from the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses.
Other Democrats in Congress have shown less support, including when Biden’s top aides visited Democratic senators last week in a private lunch. When Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania asked for a show of hands on who was with the president, only his own and a few others including top Biden ally Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware went up, according to one of the people granted anonymity to discuss the matter.