Billionaire Mark Pincus, founder and former CEO of video game giant Zynga, is the latest major Democratic donor to urge President Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
The blow to the campaign comes as a number of celebrities, including Bill Maher and George Clooney, have called on Biden to field a new candidate.
“At this point, I don’t see how President Biden can get around this age competency issue,” Pincus said. He told the Financial Times.
Pincus, who has a net worth of $1.4 billion according to Forbes magazine, said holding an open convention would be Democrats’ best chance of winning the 2024 presidential election.
He said the competition would “bring new energy” to the race. Post-debate poll It shows former President Donald Trump narrowly defeating Biden.
Pincus said the Democratic Party has “a lot of strong people” who could win the nomination, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The video game giant has donated a record amount of nearly $1 million to the Biden Victory Fund so far, and has also donated more than $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
Other campaign donors told the Financial Times that funding for the Democratic Party was “drying up,” with waning donor support posing a threat to Biden’s reelection campaign.
George Krupp, a Boston real estate mogul and major Democratic donor, also called for Biden to withdraw, telling the Financial Times that Biden’s age “will haunt him throughout the campaign.”
Pincus and Krupp’s comments came a day after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Biden might reconsider his decision to continue in the campaign, an idea the incumbent has repeatedly denied.
Pelosi reportedly privately conveyed her concerns to former President Barack Obama.
After a disastrous first debate performance, in which the president froze at times and struggled to answer questions, celebrities, journalists and politicians began calling for Biden to drop out of the race.
More recently, Biden made a gaffe during a key hour-long press conference when he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” and at an earlier NATO event, he mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russia’s “President Putin.”
HBO hosts Bill Maher and Clooney each called for new candidates in guest essays for The New York Times, with Maher calling on Newsom to join the race, as did Pincus.
