WASHINGTON – Intraparty efforts to persuade President Joe Biden to abandon his re-election race flared up again Wednesday when prominent U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California became the latest Democratic member of Congress to voice his concerns.
Democratic leaders have also set a window for a virtual roll call in early August to officially name Biden the party’s presidential nominee for 2024. Members opposed to Biden’s re-nomination have raised concerns that a virtual roll call before the party’s convention in slow August would make things easier for the president.
Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate in slow June has now prompted 19 Democrats in the US House of Representatives and one Senator to publicly call on him to withdraw his re-election campaign, and several others have expressed earnest concerns about his candidacy.
Nevertheless, Biden, 81, refused to give inand said: “I am best qualified to govern and I think I am best qualified to win.”
The Democrats’ demands for Biden’s re-election campaign had been noiseless since attack against former President Donald J. Trump over the weekend, in which one rally attendee was killed and two others injured during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 after a campaign rally in Nevada on Wednesday, according to a statement from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Biden canceled a later event in Nevada and planned to continue working in isolation at his home in Delaware, Jean-Pierre said.
Virtual appeal
Also on Wednesday, the co-chairs of the Rules Committee of the Democratic National Convention wrote to committee members that no virtual roll call vote to determine the party’s candidate would be held before August 1.
DNC officials, including Chairman Jaime Harrisonsaid a virtual roll call before the Democratic convention, where an official nomination is usually made, was necessary because of an Ohio law that requires nominees to be named at least 90 days before Election Day, which puts the deadline on Aug. 7.
Ohio lawmakers later pushed that deadline back to September, but Wednesday’s DNC letter indicates the law won’t take effect until September. To avoid the risk of lawsuits over the Buckeye State’s ballots, the party is conducting a virtual roll call to meet that deadline, the letter said.
The letter noted that the Rules Committee “will not rush into a virtual voting process, but we will begin the important considerations of how a virtual voting process would work.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been pushing the DNC to postpone the virtual roll call, a person on background told States Newsroom. Schumer’s push came after he spoke with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and both agreed to postpone the virtual roll call.
Prominent member of the House of Representatives
Schiff, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and lead impeachment manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial, is perhaps the best known nationally among those who have called for Biden’s resignation.
Schiff is considered the favorite for a seat in the U.S. Senate in California after the nomination of the Democrats in the democratic state, called for Biden’s resignation in a statement on Wednesday.
He noted: “While the decision to withdraw from the campaign rests solely with President Biden, I believe it is time for him to pass the baton. And in doing so, he is securing his legacy as a leader by enabling us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”
Schiff said Biden was “one of the greatest presidents in our nation’s history and his lifelong service as senator, vice president and now president has made our country better.”
Schiff vowed that he would do everything in his power to assist the Democratic Party candidate succeed, no matter who is ultimately nominated.
“There is only one goal: to defeat Donald Trump. The stakes are simply too high,” he said.
Democrats want Biden out
Meanwhile, polls continue to point unfavorably to Biden’s re-election.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say they want Biden to withdraw from the race and let the party choose someone else, according to a AP-NORC Poll published on Wednesday.
Three-quarters of Democratic respondents between the ages of 18 and 44 and 57 percent of those over 45 were in favor of Biden’s resignation.
On the other hand, 73 percent of Republicans believe Trump – whom Republicans formally nominated at their convention this week – should continue his bid for the White House. Only a little more than a quarter of Republicans want him to resign.
Discuss the impact on performance
Since the shaky debate performance nearly three weeks ago, a ponderous but steady escalate in congressional Democrats has been urging Biden to withdraw from the race.
US Senator Peter Welch is the only senator within the Democratic Party, which called on the President to leave the party, a position he expressed in a WashingtonPost op-ed.
“For the good of the country, I urge President Biden to drop out of the race,” the Vermont Democrat wrote last week.
So far, the public calls have come from members of Congress representing Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Vermont and Washington.
A spokesman for the Biden-Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
