By Steve Holland, Moira Warburton and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some elected Democrats are loyal to the president Joe Biden raised new questions Tuesday about his 2024 re-election campaign, with one calling for him to resign, a move that came after many defended him following his shaky debate performance last week.
Whether Biden will continue his bid for president in 2024 after his lackluster debate performance against the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Democrats and political strategists say it’s largely his decision.
But Biden is under pressure. Some donors have called for him to step aside, and other Democrats have openly worried that he is ill-equipped to defeat Trump in November.
According to a House Democratic aide, 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives are preparing to call on Biden to resign if he appears to be unsteady in the coming days.
A second House Democratic Party aide said moderate Democrats in competitive districts — often called “frontliners” — were grilled this week about questions in their districts.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll after the debate found that one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election campaign.
US Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first Democrat in Congress on Tuesday to call on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, telling NBC News in an interview that he hoped other Democratic lawmakers would follow his lead.
“It looks like the dam has broken,” said the second assistant.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi highlighted Biden’s numerous legislative accomplishments during an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, but said it was legitimate to ask whether his debate performance was a one-off or a broader health issue. She said Trump should face the same scrutiny.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?’ And if people ask that question, that’s legitimate, of both candidates,” Pelosi said.
Immediately after the debate, Pelosi had shown strong support. “Joe Biden’s decision to go forward is a decision that we will all embrace because of the record that he has and the accomplishments that come with it,” she said at the time.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden was not having an “episode” but just a bad night.
Vice President Kamala Harris, asked in a CBS News interview about Doggett’s claim, said, “Look, Joe Biden is our nominee. We beat Trump once and we’re going to beat him. Period.”
Biden, who spoke without a teleprompter at a campaign rally in Virginia on Tuesday night, blamed his performance on a lack of sleep and said his campaign had raised $38 million since the debate.
“The fact is I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, travel through about 100 time zones … for … the debate. I didn’t listen to my staff and came back and almost fell asleep on the podium,” he said. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”
Some Democrats suggested that Biden should think about the future of the party as a whole.
“He has to be honest with himself,” Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley, a moderate from Illinois, told CNN on Tuesday. “It’s his decision. I just want him to realize right now how much of an impact it has, not just on his race, but on all the other races that come November.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat often credited with securing Biden’s nomination in the 2020 presidential race, told MSNBC on Tuesday that he would support Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee if Biden were to step down.
Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, predicted Tuesday that Trump would win the election, as did Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democratic representative from Washington state.
BIDEN TO TALK TO GOVERNORS AND CONGRESS
The president and his campaign are scrambling to drum up support. Biden will meet virtually and in person with Democratic governors at the White House on Wednesday and speak to lawmakers this week, White House officials said.
One of the House Democratic Party staffers said members were disappointed with the lack of information provided so far.
Doggett told NBC News that he had asked the White House to speak to Biden personally about his call to withdraw, but that he had not heard back from him.
Biden’s campaign held difficult phone calls on Sunday and Monday with key financiers who questioned his plans to stay in the race.
When asked Tuesday why Biden hadn’t given more media interviews or press conferences after his debate raised questions, Jean-Pierre pointed to his visit to a Waffle House in Atlanta on the night of the debate and subsequent interactions with supporters.
Biden is scheduled to do an interview with ABC this week and plans to hold a press conference at the NATO summit next week. The Democratic Hill aide said a lot was riding on the ABC interview, with lawmakers wanting to see he could handle quick questions and not just orchestrated campaign appearances.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign reported that she and her Democratic allies raised $264 million in the second quarter, including $127 million in June and a record amount of grassroots fundraising on the day of Biden’s debate.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Moira Warburton, Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal in Washington; additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Jason Lange; editing by Heather Timmons and Stephen Coates)
