A beleaguered Joe Biden entered potentially the most decisive weekend of his 50-year political career on Friday as the growing list of Democratic members of Congress calling on him to step aside surpassed 30, with the latest being the Ohio senator Sherrod Brown.
Biden is recovering from Covid-19 in self-isolation at his home in Delaware and reportedly feeling “angry and betrayed” by allies and speculation mounted that he might be preparing to announce his withdrawal from the race.
Advisers were reported to be discussing the details, timing and setting of a possible withdrawal announcement, and a mood of resignation before Biden’s departure was said to be rampant among his campaign staff.
With six in 10 Democratic voters telling an AP-Norc Centre for Public Affairs Research poll released on Friday that Kamala Harris would make a good president, allies of the vice-president were making discreet preparations for her to assume the top of the presidential ticket, courting donors and crafting a new message to be used in the event she becomes the candidate.
A rare glimmer of light for Biden came in a letter on Thursday signed by more than 1,400 Black female supporters, who argued that he should remain the candidate, and that any attempt to change the ticket would “circumvent the will of millions of voters who participated in a democratic process” in the primaries. Another public statement of support on Thursday came from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, who during an Instagram live stream on Thursday urged Democrats to reconsider their efforts to push Biden out.
On Friday, Bernie Sanders also urged support for Biden.
The Congressional Hispanic caucus’s campaign arm also announced on Friday that it was endorsing Biden, which is no surprise given the group’s opposition to Trump but noteworthy at a moment when the president is fighting for his political life. “Another Trump presidency would be disastrous to the Latino community across the country,” the group’s chairwoman, Linda Sánchez, said.
But with more than 30 Democrats in Congress, including the leading California representative Adam Schiff, having now called on Biden to step down, the president was said to be angry at senior figures in the party for encouraging the discontent. Chief among them is Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who has tried to persuade Biden of his declining poll numbers, as well as Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, who Biden reportedly feels have undermined him through their conspicuous silence.
Late on Friday evening, Senator Brown released a statement: “At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the president should end his campaign.”
After weeks of defiantly stating that he will remain the Democratic nominee, despite concerns about his age and mental acuity in the wake of last month’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump, some media outlets were reporting that Biden was reconsidering his position. “Reality is setting in,” a source close to Biden told the New York Times, adding that it would not be surprising if Biden announced his withdrawal soon to allow Harris to take the nomination.
“I don’t see how [Biden] can outmanoeuvre the sustained attacks,” Politico quoted a Democratic figure close to the White House as saying. “It feels like the ending is near.”
Biden’s resolve had reportedly been shaken by a combination of the intensive machinations of Pelosi, fresh poll data from swing states showing his path to an electoral college victory narrowing, and a boycott by key donors, the latest of whom reportedly was the Silicon Valley billionaire Michael Moritz.
Pelosi, long one of his most important allies, is said to have used her knowledge of polling data and the political map to persuade him that his position is weak.
Biden has repeatedly insisted that he has polling evidence showing he could win, relying on data from his aide Mike Donilon. But when he made the argument to Pelosi in a recent phone call, she told him to “put Donilon on the phone” so she could counter it with her own polling and implying that the president was not being kept informed, the New York Times reported.
Public pressure intensified further on Thursday when the Senate Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico publicly urged Biden to step aside. Many more than the 30-plus congressional Democrats who have publicly called for his withdrawal have done so in private.
Four House members – Jared Huffman of California, Marc Veasey of Texas, Chuy Garcia of Illinois, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin – issued a plea jointly Friday.
“They wrote to Biden: “Mr President, you have always put our country and our values first. We call on you to do it once again, so that we can come together and save the country we love.”
Three further separate calls were made by Zoe Lofgren of California, a close Pelosi ally, Sean Casten of Illinois, and Greg Landsman of Ohio, whose seat is one of the Republicans’ top targets in November’s election.
Allies of Pelosi depicted her as exercising sensitivity towards Biden – by recognising his achievements as president, long record of political service and the fact that he has Covid – while subtly using gentle persuasion.
“She’s like a magician,” one source told the Hill. “She’s extraordinarily intentional. She’s trying hard to keep the balance and helping him reach a decision by gently pulling, never pushing.”
That cut little ice with Biden’s allies, one of whom compared his fate to Julius Caesar.
“People who have known this man for 30, 40 years are stabbing this man in the front and the back,” a senior campaign and administration aide told Politico. “They are JULIUS CAESAR-ing this man.”
Biden himself was reported to share such sentiments, telling aides that he feels “hurt and betrayed” at how the party’s leading figures – who he has previously derided as “elites” – have tried to push him out.
One Biden ally told NBC News that the party leaders now trying to force him from the ticket were to blame for Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.
“Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump? In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, [Chuck] Schumer [the Democratic Senate majority leader] pushed Biden aside in favour of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now,” the source said.
“Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?”
Biden’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, continued to stress that Biden had “work to do” but said the campaign did not have its “head in the sand”.
Emphasizing that Biden’s campaign trail appearances have been reassuring to the campaign, she said: “The more and more people that see Joe Biden out there post-debate they are reassured.”
Such defiance seemed increasingly rare inside the Biden campaign, however, with CNN reporting that some staff had undergone a “quiet quit” process. “I don’t think you can find a person who is off the record saying he should stay in,” one said. “There’s a growing sense that it’s game over.”
Lauren Gambino contributed reporting
