‘No one is irreplaceable’: More Democrats say Biden’s candidacy is unsustainable

After watching Biden in private, in public and while travelling with him, the official said they no longer believed the president had what it took to campaign in a vigorous way and defeat former president Donald Trump. The official, who insisted on anonymity in order to continue serving, said Biden had steadily showed more signs of his age in recent months, including speaking more slowly, haltingly and quietly, as well as appearing more fatigued in private.

Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, pointed to Biden’s comments from an interview with US broadcaster ABC News, in which he vowed to stay in the race.

In that interview, Biden also defended his sharpness and ability to serve.

For years, Democratic officials have largely limited their concerns about Biden’s age and abilities to quiet conversations, although many voters have loudly expressed their reservations about nominating someone who would be 86 by the end of a second term. But in the days since the first presidential debate, in late June, and what some Democrats have described as the campaign’s weak attempt at damage control, the whispered anxieties have been turning into a whirlwind of action, although where it all will lead is an open question.

Many Democrats who believe Biden should exit the race stress their personal affection and respect for him, describing a sense of genuine sadness.

Still, donors are funding private polling to assess how alternatives to Biden would fare. Politicians are discussing whether and when to break publicly from the president, with one Democratic strategist close to moderate members of Congress predicting “the dam is about to break” when representatives return to Washington next week.

And at least one recent endorser is expressing open misgivings.

Geoff Duncan, a Republican who is a former lieutenant governor of Georgia, campaigned for Biden the day before the debate, as part of his opposition to Trump.

But the “debate was a huge eye-opener for me about the physical and mental wellbeing of President Biden”, Duncan said. “It will take a significant amount of counterevidence to unwind what I saw and heard during that debate. That seems like an unlikely scenario at this point.”

There is also a new effort under way to organise delegates before the convention in August to show that rank-and-file Democrats want a different candidate, said an organiser who insisted on anonymity to discuss a nascent campaign.

It will be conducted through a new group, Pass the Torch, which is also promoting a petition for Democrats more broadly, urging Biden to step aside. A man standing near the president before he spoke at a rally in Wisconsin on Friday held a sign bearing the slogan “Pass the torch, Joe”.

Biden said he had no intention of doing that.

During his Wisconsin speech, the president struck a defiant tone, saying no one could “push” him to drop out. “Let me say this as clear as I can: I’m staying in the race,” he proclaimed.

He echoed those comments in his interview with ABC News, and he plans to campaign in Pennsylvania on Sunday (Monday AEST).

“President Biden knows better than anyone that campaigns are all about earning voters’ trust and support,” Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden, said in a statement. “He’s out on the campaign trail doing that – and in the states with the voters who will decide this election. There are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over.”

Biden’s family holds great influence in his decision-making, and after the debate, they urged him to stay in the race. The decision is effectively his alone: If he stepped aside, he would almost certainly have to release his own delegates, freeing them up to support another nominee.

Chris Coons, the Democratic senator from Delaware, a longtime Biden ally, said that the president joined a call with his campaign co-chairs on Saturday and what was scheduled for a 15-minute check-in turned into a 75-minute discussion led by the president. Biden spent the time soliciting feedback from them about his performance during the debate, his rally in Wisconsin and the ABC News interview.

“There is nobody among the co-chairs who is recommending anything other than we keep going,” Coons said. He said the group shared messages with Biden from supporters who wanted him to keep going but also messages from supporters urging him to drop out.

“He was told that we have members of the Senate and the House and governors, and especially donors, who have unanswered questions and were unsettled and who have concerns,” Coons said.

Biden told the group that he understood the concerns and wanted to do more interviews and unscripted appearances in the future.

Some of Biden’s advisers have suggested that the focus on the president’s age and debate performance is only of interest to donors, the news media and pundits. They said the campaign’s small-dollar fundraising remained strong and noted that many Democratic elected officials had publicly stressed their support for Biden and continued to campaign for him.

But polls show that a strong majority of voters believe Biden is too old to serve another term as president, including one survey conducted after the debate by The New York Times and Siena College.

Ruwa Romman, a representative from Georgia, urged Democrats to pay attention.

“It’s really worrying me because I don’t think people are listening,” she said, stopping short of calling on Biden to step aside. “It’s just worth thinking about and talking about and really exploring and making sure that we did our due diligence so that, come November, we can honestly say we did all that we could.”

In interviews with dozens of DNC members, key party activists, many said Biden had their full support. In their view, the election remains a choice between Biden and Trump, and they have no interest in reassessing their options.

“I am happy to have President Biden at the top of the ticket,” said Virgie Rollins, chair of the DNC’s Black caucus. “I will take President Biden in a wheelchair before I take the convicted felon.”

Jonathan Saidel, a committee member from Philadelphia, said he thought Biden’s ABC News interview had gone better than the debate. But even if it had gone poorly, he said, he would have remained committed to Biden, arguing that the election was more about convincing voters of the dangers of Trump than the merits of the current president.

“What I tell people is that they don’t have Jesus and Moses on the ticket,” Saidel said. “No one is perfect.”

Other Democrats expressed wariness about diving into an unpredictable, messy process of finding a new nominee less than four months before election day. There is also no unanimity, in these hypothetical scenarios, about whether the party should immediately unite behind Vice President Kamala Harris or pursue an open nominating process if Biden steps aside, tensions that may move to the fore in coming weeks.

A few DNC members mentioned a proposal circulated by James Zogby, a longtime committee member, to establish a more open nomination process in that scenario. It was evidence that even within the most supportive party apparatus, some are openly thinking through other contingencies.

“If it ends up that President Biden steps down, I hope and assume any process to replace the top of the ticket will be fully transparent while empowering our grassroots base,” said Jeri Shepherd, a committee member from Colorado.

David Walters, a former governor of Oklahoma and a DNC member, has been raising concerns since the debate, citing Biden’s polling.

“There is only one relevant issue,” he wrote in an email to the Times on the Fourth of July. “Who is the best candidate to stop Donald Trump.”

He praised Biden’s record of legislative accomplishments and his foreign policy acumen, and said that if the president stepped down, “he would receive the accolades of the world for his personal sacrifice for the good of his nation”.

“In politics and campaigns, perception is greater than reality,” Walters said. “He may be operating at 100 per cent capacity. But 14 months into this 18-month campaign, the campaign is losing this argument.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.