WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 in the House if he didn’t step away from the race.
Pelosi also showed Biden polling that he likely can’t defeat Republican Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.
Time racing, Democrats at the highest levels are making a critical push for Biden to reconsider his reelection bid, as unease grows at the White House and within the campaign at a fraught moment for the president and his party.
Biden has insisted he is not backing down, adamant that he is the candidate who beat Republican Donald Trump before and will do it again this year. 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.”
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In recent days the president has become become more committed to staying in the race, according to another person familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it.
But 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 will assess the trajectory of the race and his legacy during this few days’ pause.
Using mountains of data showing Biden’s standing could wipe out the ranks of Democrats in Congress, frank conversations in public and private, and now, the president’s own time off the campaign trail after testing positive for COVID-19, many Democrats see an opportunity to encourage a reassessment.
Time is of the essence. 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 views of Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Democrats' concerns.
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 frontline Democrats who are seeking election to the House.
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And on Wednesday, California Rep. Adam Schiff, a close ally of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, became the highest-profile House Democrat to call for Biden to drop his reelection bid, saying that while the decision is Biden's alone to make, 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 it's still early and that many people don't focus on the 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 morning.
Some national polls do show a close race, though others suggest Trump with a lead. And some state polls have contained warning signs too, including a recent New York Times/Siena poll that suggested a competitive race in Virginia.
While the tensions over Biden's ability to carry on a winning campaign subsided some, particularly after the Trump assassination attempt and as the Republican National Convention was 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 Democrats 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 that begins Aug. 19 in Chicago.
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. Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
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.”
But among Democrats nationwide, nearly two-thirds say Biden should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new 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 has 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 in the wake of his dismal debate performance against Trump last month.
Schiff said that by bowing out, Biden would "secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”
Schiff is a prominent Democrat on his own, and his statement will also be watched because of his proximity to Pelosi.
It was Pelosi who revived questions about Biden post-debate, when she said recently that “it’s up to the president” to decide what to do — even though Biden had already fully stated he had no intention of stepping aside. The former House speaker publicly supports the president, but has fielded calls from Democrats since debate night questioning what’s next.
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. The campaign noted that Biden had been joined on his trip to Nevada this week by nearly a dozen Congressional Black Caucus members.
Still, Schiff's announcement came after Schumer and Jeffries encouraged the party to delay for a week plans to hold the virtual vote to renominate Biden, which could have taken place as soon as Sunday, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The Democratic National Committee' s rulemaking arm is set to meet on Friday to discuss how the virtual vote plans will work and to finalize them next week.
“We will not be implementing a rushed virtual voting process, though we will begin our important consideration of how a virtual voting process would work,” Bishop Leah D. Daughtry and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, co-chairs of the rules committee for the Democratic National Convention wrote in a letter Wednesday.
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.