MILWAUKEE — After a brief silence following Saturday’s near assassination of former President Donald Trump, Democrats are increasingly calling for President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) was the first House Democrat to publicly call on Biden to step down, but he has resisted and repeated his demands, showing the rebellion against his party’s presumptive nominee is unrelenting.
“My call for President Biden to step down has become even more urgent. Our decision must take into account the reality of steadily worsening poll numbers, not merely wishful thinking,” Doggett, 77, said in a statement Wednesday.
“The risk of Trump’s tyranny is so great that we must field the most viable candidate,” he added.
Democratic dissidents are outraged that party leaders have rejected calls to back down from plans for a virtual roll-call vote to formally select Biden, 81, as the nominee by Aug. 7.
A letter has been circulating among House Democrats urging the Democratic National Committee to reconsider the measure, but leadership has remained unmoved.
“Expediting the nomination process is not the way to convince the many unconvinced voters in a growing number of battleground states,” Doggett said.
The exact date for the virtual roll call is unclear, but Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison has said it will take place before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.
But in Ohio, the deadline to put a candidate’s name on the ballot is Aug. 7, about two weeks before the convention. Plans for a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden as the party’s presidential nominee have been public since May to ensure he would appear on Ohio’s ballot under state law.
“Those who seek to overly defend President Biden are ignoring his own words, in which he called on anyone who questions his nomination to do so at the convention. Bypassing the normal process of a convention puts the White House, the Senate and the House at risk.”
Officials have repeatedly denied claims that the move was to protect Biden and stressed that the decision was made before Biden’s disastrous defeat in a debate last month against 78-year-old former President Donald Trump.
At least 20 Democrats have publicly called on Biden to pass the baton, including Rep. Marie Grusenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), who was less forthright in her statements than Biden but still strongly suggested the baton should be handed over.
Biden has rejected the calls, insisting he is “firmly committed” to continuing the campaign and remains adamant that he represents the party’s best chance of defeating Trump in November.
Efforts to pressure him to resign have slowed this week following last weekend’s assassination attempt on Trump and the Republican National Convention.
Those incidents, plus the fact that Congress was in recess, temporarily calmed the air around attempted insurrection against Biden, but Doggett’s comments make it clear that the insurrection attempts are not going away.
Even more Democrats than have done so publicly have privately expressed deep concern that Biden will not win the November election and see Trump as an existential threat to democracy.
“America is in grave danger of a Trump administration running wild. Joe Biden, who has accomplished so much for the country, should not be remembered for this,” Doggett continued. “Every day this decision is delayed takes less focus from Trump’s lies and shortens the time for a new Democratic candidate to secure victory.”
Doggett was a Biden ally even before Biden called on the president to step down.
