Senior Democratic Party officials expect President Biden to make a major announcement about his future shortly after the Republican National Convention concludes in Milwaukee, and congressional leaders are said to expect Vice President Harris to be his running mate if Biden decides not to seek reelection.
Senior Democratic strategists and donors have been discussing who would be the best candidate to serve as Harris’ running mate, with the field narrowed down to three candidates: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have told party officials they are not interested in serving as Harris’ running mate, according to a person familiar with the candidates vying to succeed Harris as president.
Biden has come under intense pressure from party leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who have directly told the president that a majority of Democratic senators and the majority of House members do not believe Biden can beat former President Trump.
Alumni from President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns are ready to help Harris launch her own presidential campaign if Biden agrees to step down, according to a source familiar with the transition plans.
Democratic strategists say Biden has failed to reassure jittery Democrats and donors that he can bounce back from his dismal debate performance and erase persistent questions about his mental fitness, energy and health.
Instead, sources say Biden is stuck with the perception that he is too old to effectively serve another four years as president, and there seems to be no way for him to dispel that perception before Election Day.
Congressional leaders are “cold” to make Harris the nominee but recognize that she has higher approval ratings than Biden and believe the president could boost her approval ratings by campaigning on her behalf, a person familiar with leadership-level discussions said.
“Conversations are happening and are different and more robust than they were a few weeks ago or even a few days ago and have intensified since Saturday,” said a person familiar with the discussions between congressional leaders and Democratic donors.
“The president is now focused on getting to the top of the list and leading the party to a victory,” the source said, adding that “higher echelons” in the Democratic Party are already looking ahead to what the new list would look like if Harris becomes the presidential nominee.
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates denied reports that Biden was considering dropping out of the race.
“False,” he said in a one-word statement after The Hill reported that Biden was expected to make a decision about his political future within days.
The names of Kelly and Cooper have recently emerged as top contenders for vice presidential nominations.
The Biden campaign’s plan is to “visit states this week,” but that could change quickly, according to the source.
“There’s a lot going on in Delaware today,” the source added. “We’ll see some strong statements tonight after another candidate takes the stage,” referring to Trump accepting the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Biden’s campaign has led supporters to believe the president will reaffirm his commitment to continue the campaign until Election Day, but some doubt he will announce his decision to end his campaign.
“It’s unclear what the ultimate message will be,” the strategist added. “There’s still a long way to go before that happens.”
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 after holding an event in Las Vegas and has returned to Delaware to “self-isolate,” meaning any announcement about his future may be delayed until Monday.
But the president will have an incentive to clear up the turmoil within his party before senators and representatives return to Washington, sparking new concerns and calls for the president to halt his campaign. House Democrats are due to fly in on Monday, and senators are due back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Democrats say Trump’s approval ratings will rise due to an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that united Republicans, and the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, making any comeback by Biden seem increasingly unlikely.
One Biden ally said the president remains defensive, even defiant, about his political future, but those around him are aware that things are getting worse, a source told The Hill.
With Biden holed up in his Delaware beach house and infected with COVID-19, Democratic Party officials continue to sound the alarm about Biden’s possible victory in the presidential election, and there is a palpable sense among campaign officials and those close to the campaign that the end is near.
First, the latest polls continue to paint a bleak picture for Biden. “It just keeps getting worse,” said one strategist close to the campaign. “There’s no evidence to the contrary. Morale is worse than I’ve ever seen it. It’s bad. Everybody seems to have a premonition of what’s going to happen.”
“At this point, it’s unsustainable,” one campaign rep said. “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
Sources said small donors continue to chip in, but larger fundraising efforts are running in the red as larger donors continue to withhold donations.
“There are big rifts and they’re beyond repair,” one major Democratic donor said, adding that fundraising is “tough” because “Biden’s candidacy is clearly on the brink of collapse and the campaign knows it.”
“This is cooked,” the donor added.
A second Democratic donor agreed, saying, “The general consensus is that Biden is not going to be the nominee and we’re waiting to see who the nominee is.”
A White House official told ABC News on Thursday that nothing has changed about Biden’s candidacy or plans for next week’s campaign.
“He’s going to win the nomination and then the party will need to come together,” the official told ABC News.
Democratic strategists confirmed media reports that Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi had each met with Biden to convey widespread pessimism among congressional Democrats about whether he could win the November election and to discuss polls that show Biden now trailing significantly ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“These are three separate views, but they all amount to the same thing,” the source said, explaining that the message from congressional leaders to Biden is that he is unlikely to win a second term.
Democratic strategists, including senior members of Mr. Obama’s political team, visited Mr. Biden’s aides more than a year ago and expressed serious concerns about Mr. Biden running for a second term.
“There is not a single senator who doesn’t want him to resign. [Sen. Chris] Kuhn [D-Del.]”The dam has broken,” John Biden, the Biden campaign’s national co-chairman, told a second senior Democratic source.
Kenneth Baer, a Democratic strategist and former Obama administration official, noted a recent Associated Press/NORC poll showed that two-thirds of Democrats want someone other than Biden to be the presidential nominee.
“President Biden is in a bind. The question, unlike any other question about a candidate, is very hard to disprove. Does he have the youth or mental toughness to win as a presidential candidate? What can he do? [do] “How do you change people’s minds and do it very quickly?” Baer said.
“The polls have been pretty consistent for over a year. A majority of Americans, independents and even a majority of Democrats, felt he was too old for the job. I don’t know what he can do.” [do]”Discussions came up and that was one way of doing it but it didn’t work, so what can we do next?” he added.
A spokesman for Schumer said Schumer met with Biden on Saturday and “conveyed his partisan views directly to the president.”
During a meeting last Thursday before the Butler shooting, Jeffries had warned Biden that continuing the campaign could hurt Democrats’ chances of winning the House majority.
A spokesman for Jeffries said he represented the House Democratic caucus “directly expressing the broad range of insights, views and conclusions we have gained about the way forward.”
CNN reported on Thursday that Pelosi privately told Biden in a “recent conversation” that polls show Biden cannot beat Trump and warned him that this could damage Democrats’ chances of winning the House majority.
Democratic sources said Biden’s top advisers, including former Sen. Ted Kaufman (Delaware), former Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, First Lady Jill Biden and Biden’s sister Valerie Biden Owens, were “gazing into reality” after receiving feedback from congressional leaders.
“Everyone understands that if Biden steps down, Kamala is the only option,” the source added.
The strategists said the longer it takes Biden to announce he is dropping out of the race, the “more difficult it will be to make all the transitions” needed to field a new candidate and run a campaign.
“All of Obama’s former colleagues are ready to take over and run Harris’ campaign, which means Obama is all in on this,” the source added.
Harris has her own problems, including high staff turnover, and is not well-liked by Biden supporters.
Kelly, who has risen to the top of Harris’ running mate list, said he remains a strong supporter of Biden continuing to campaign, according to two strategists.
“We’ve met with Senator Schumer over the last few weeks to discuss this issue, but the reality is that we believe President Biden and Kamala Harris are our nominees,” he told MSNBC. “Millions of Americans across the country, in all 50 states and territories, voted for them. We have an election in 110 days and we have to be focused on that.”
Advisers to Newsom did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the California governor removing his name from consideration as Harris’ running mate, and the governor’s press office did not respond to a voice message.
A spokesman for Gov. Whitmer declined to comment on whether the Michigan governor was interested in running for vice president.
Both donors said there is still uncertainty among donors about whether Harris can beat Trump.
“Many of us think there should be an open tournament. That would create a lot of excitement.”
Updated 9:02 p.m.
