President Joe Biden sent a message on Friday: He’s not going anywhere.
Beset by poor polls, calls from within his own party to step aside and, as of Wednesday, even Covid-19, Biden said he was eager to return to campaigning.
“I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone,” Biden said in a campaign statement.
“The stakes are high, and the choice is clear. Together, we will win.”
The message appeared to be a rebuke to a growing number of rank-and-file Democrats who have said publicly they would like to see him step aside in favour of Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat at the top of the party’s presidential ticket.
Speculation had risen ahead of the weekend that Biden may be reconsidering his decision to stay in the race. Axios reported several unspecified “top Democrats” believed the pressure from within the party to step aside would keep rising and persuade Biden “as soon as this weekend” to quit.
That idea was quickly and publicly rejected by the White House.
“Wrong. Keep the faith,” posted White House spokesperson Andrew Bates on social media early on Friday in response to a story that Biden’s family had discussed an exit strategy for him. Bates had similarly described another account of exit preparations as “fan fiction.”
Still, despite the Biden camp’s public steadfastness, defections continued to grow to around 30 Democrats on Capitol Hill. Friday morning saw one of the most significant yet in Representative Zoe Lofgren (Democrat, California), a 15-term congresswoman who was one of Trump’s impeachment trial managers and the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Space, Science and Technology Committee.
“As I am aware that you have been provided data indicating that you in all likelihood will lose the race for President, I will not go through it again,” Lofgren said in a public letter to Biden.
“Simply put, your candidacy is on a trajectory to lose the White House and potentially impact crucial House and Senate races down ballot. It is for these reasons that I urge you to step aside from our Party’s nomination to allow another Democratic candidate to compete against and beat Donald Trump in the November election.”
As one of the longest-serving Democrats in the House and an ally of former speaker Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California), Lofgren has the respect of many members of the House Democratic caucus and could be influential in convincing others to publicly join her call.
There was already a small cavalcade of public defections from Biden on Friday morning. Representatives Jared Huffman (Democrat, California), Chuy García (Democrat, Illinois), Marc Veasey (Democrat, Texas) and Mark Pocan (Democrat, Wisconsin) issued a joint statement for Biden to step aside that said he had “lifted up, empowered, and prepared” younger Democratic leaders like Harris for this moment.
Representatives Greg Landsman (Democrat, Ohio) and Sean Casten (Democrat, Illinois) each issued their own statements on Friday calling for Biden to abandon his reelection bid. “There is too much on the line, and we have to be able to make that case to the American people about the change we need and the country we all deserve,” Landsman wrote.
And on Thursday, The New York Times reported that Representative Jamie Raskin (Democrat, Maryland), another impeachment manager and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, had written a letter to Biden earlier in the month to try to persuade him to drop out, comparing him to an effective but tired pitcher late in a tight baseball game.
“There is no shame in taking a well-deserved bow to the overflowing appreciation of the crowd when your arm is tired out, and there is real danger for the team in ignoring the statistics,” he wrote.
Biden also received more bad news in the form of an estimate from noted polling expert Nate Silver. In his newsletter, Silver said Biden was now polling 4 points behind Trump and had hit a new low in Silver’s election forecast model, with only a 26% chance of winning the Electoral College vote.
But even that estimate may be slightly optimistic, according to Silver.
“However, the model is designed to be cautious around party conventions: it’s shaving a little bit off Trump’s numbers and also hedging toward its pre-convention forecast. If Trump sustains these numbers, the forecast will continue to get worse for Biden,” he wrote.
