Top Democratic leaders in the United States including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi have expressed concerns to President Joe Biden over his ability to win the presidential election in November, according to media reports.
Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told Biden, who is 81 years old, to withdraw from the presidential race, the ABC News broadcaster reported on Wednesday.
Schumer made the appeal during a “blunt conversation” with the president in Delaware on Saturday, “making the case it would be best if Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race”, ABC said, citing a knowledgeable source close to both men.
Hakeem has also expressed similar views directly to Biden, suggesting he should drop out of the race, ABC said, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Pelosi, the former House speaker, was meanwhile reported to have told Biden in a recent telephone call that polling indicates he cannot defeat his challenger, Donald Trump, and could even destroy the Democrats’ chance of winning the House in November if he continues seeking a second term, according to the CNN broadcaster.
The network cited four sources briefed on the call.
But it said none of the sources indicated if Pelosi told Biden she believes the president should drop out.
The reports came as California Representative Adam Schiff became the highest-profile Democrat to publicly urge Biden to drop his re-election bid and new polling from AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed nearly two-thirds of Democrats nationwide want the president to step aside and nominate a different candidate.
Schumer’s office responded to the report about his meeting with the president with a statement calling it “idle speculation” and said the Democratic Senate leader “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday”.
A Pelosi spokesperson told CNN that the former speaker has not spoken to Biden since Friday.
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”.
Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, has repeatedly rejected calls from Democrats to drop out of the race following his halting performance in a debate last month against Trump.
He told one interviewer recently that only the “Lord Almighty” could persuade him to quit the race.
The White House said that the president is currently self-isolating in Delaware, but will “continue to carry out his duties fully”.
Biden has “mild symptoms” and was suffering from “general malaise” because of the infection, the White House said.
Arshad Hasan, a Democratic political strategist and the founder of Convey Communications, told Al Jazeera there was “handwringing” behind the scenes at all levels of the party over the president’s chances.
“We know as Democrats that the stakes are incredibly high,” he said.
“The contrast between the vision that these two candidates present could not be greater, could not be starker. We’ve had four years under Trump and they were disastrous. There was a pandemic, unrest in the streets, terrible economy and we’ve had four years of Biden, which has seen some of the biggest growth and rebound this country has ever seen,” he said from Los Angeles.
“So the contrast is there, not just in the economy, but in the future of what we believe our democratic society has to be. The stakes are very high, so people are very concerned, and very sensitive to our chances, as to whether we win or not.”
