WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — The intraparty effort to convince President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid resurfaced Wednesday when prominent U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California became the latest Democratic member of Congress to go public with his concerns.
Leading Democrats also set an early August window for a virtual roll call to officially name Biden as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee. Members opposed to Biden’s renomination have raised concerns a virtual roll call ahead of the party’s late August convention would ease the president’s path.
Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June has now led 19 U.S. House Democrats and one senator to publicly call for him to drop his reelection bid, and several more have expressed serious concerns about his candidacy.
Still, Biden, 81, has refused to back down, saying, “I’m the best qualified to govern and I think I’m the best qualified to win.”
Democratic calls regarding Biden’s reelection bid had quieted since the assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump over the weekend, which killed one rally goer and left two others injured during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Late Wednesday afternoon, ABC News reported Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had urged Biden to withdraw in a private conversation over the weekend.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Schumer called the report “idle speculation.”
From a spokesperson for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:
“Unless ABC’s source is Senator Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden the reporting is idle speculation. Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 after a campaign event in Nevada on Wednesday, according to a statement from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Biden cancelled a later Nevada event and planned to continue working in isolation at his Delaware home, Jean-Pierre said.
Virtual roll call
Also Wednesday, in a letter obtained by States Newsroom, the co-chairs of the Democratic National Convention Rules Committee wrote to committee members that no virtual roll call voting to determine the party’s nominee will take place prior to Aug. 1.
DNC officials, including Chair Jaime Harrison, said a virtual roll call ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which would typically be the site of an official nomination, was necessary because of an Ohio law requiring nominees to be named at least 90 days before Election Day, making the deadline Aug. 7.
Ohio lawmakers later moved that deadline to September, but Wednesday’s DNC letter notes that law doesn’t take effect until September. To avoid any risk of lawsuits over ballots in the Buckeye State, the party is moving ahead with a virtual roll call to beat that deadline, the letter said.
The letter specified that the Rules Committee “will not be implementing a rushed virtual voting process, though we will begin our important consideration of how a virtual voting process would work.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pressed for the DNC to delay the virtual roll call, an individual speaking on background told States Newsroom. Schumer’s push came after he spoke with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and both agreed on delaying the virtual roll call.
Prominent House member
Schiff, a former House Intelligence Committee chair and the lead impeachment manager in the first impeachment of Trump, is perhaps the most well-known nationally of those who have called for Biden to withdraw.
Schiff, who is favored to win a U.S. Senate seat in California after clinching the Democratic nomination in the blue state, called for Biden to step down in a statement Wednesday.
He noted that “while the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch. And in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”
Schiff said Biden has “been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a Vice President, and now as President has made our country better.”
Schiff vowed to do everything he can to help whoever the Democratic Party ends up nominating succeed.
“There is only one singular goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high,” he said.
Dems want Biden out
Meanwhile, polling continues to point unfavorably for Biden’s reelection bid.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say they want Biden to step down from the race and let the party select someone else, according to an AP-NORC poll published Wednesday.
Three-quarters of Democratic respondents between the ages of 18 and 44, and 57% of those 45 or older favored Biden stepping aside.
On the flip side, 73% of Republicans believe Trump — whom Republicans officially nominated at their convention this week — should continue his bid for the White House. Only a little over one-quarter of Republicans want him to withdraw.
Debate performance repercussions
Since the shaky debate performance nearly three weeks ago, a slow but steady progression of congressional Democrats has urged Biden to withdraw from the race.
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch is the only senator within the Democratic Party who has called for the president to drop out, a stance he took in a Washington Post op-ed.
“For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” the Vermont Democrat wrote last week.
So far, the public calls have come from members of Congress who represent Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Vermont and Washington.
A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
