Is Joe Biden close to dropping out? Those chances shot up to 50 percent after the proverbial dam appeared to have broken yesterday. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called on Biden to exit the race, with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) echoed those sentiments. They showed him polls highlighting the president’s inability to win and Biden becoming a weight on the entire party.
NEW — "According to my sources, President Biden agreed to step down as the Democratic nominee. It will happen as early as this weekend..."
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 18, 2024
- Mark Halperin on Newsmax just now pic.twitter.com/89vkN7VV0Q
Just now: not a NO from Chris Coons on CNN, asked whether Biden is considering dropping out of the race
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) July 18, 2024
Democrats behind the scenes have probably been doing the same for days. When Biden didn’t listen, they began leaking the details, and they’re damning. To make things worse for Biden, the president tested positive for COVID in Nevada yesterday. This development comes after Biden said he’d step aside if he suffered some medical episode. Huddled in his Delaware home, reports poured in this morning that Biden is resigned to the fact that he might need to go, thanks to bad polling, a total Democratic Party rebellion, and donor money drying up. The New York Times added this evening that Biden seems prepared to accept that he needs to back away:
NEW: CNN's @MJ_Lee reported at 7:15 p.m. Eastern that "many senior most officials inside the WH & the Biden campaign privately believe" Biden "does need to drop out" of the 2024 race.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 18, 2024
- They believe "the current situation" is "untenable", but Biden has "really dug in" with a… pic.twitter.com/tq7J5hiAdX
BIDEN TO MAKE MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT IN COMING DAYS: THE HILL
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) July 18, 2024
Several people close to President Biden said on Thursday that they believe he has begun to accept the idea that he may not be able to win in November and may have to drop out of the race, bowing to the growing demands of many anxious members of his party.
One of the people close to him warned that the president had not yet made up his mind to leave the race after three weeks of insisting that almost nothing would drive him out. But another said that “reality is setting in,” and that it would not be a surprise if Mr. Biden made an announcement soon endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.
This account is based on interviews with four people close to the president, all of whom described the situation as extremely delicate and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the president. Mr. Biden remained in isolation at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., after being diagnosed with Covid on Wednesday.
Many other Democrats more distant from the White House said expectations were rising within the party that the president would soon relent, a shift from just days ago when many were in despair about changing his mind. But there was also caution about reading signs from a president with an exceedingly small circle of confidants.
The latest Democratic defection to become public came from Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a key member of the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A letter he sent to Mr. Biden on July 6 and obtained by The New York Times on Thursday compared the 81-year-old commander in chief to a tiring baseball pitcher and urged him to consult with fellow Democrats about whether to continue his campaign. “Everything we believe in is on the line in the next four and a half months,” Mr. Raskin wrote.
Thanks @LlamasNBC @HallieJackson for having me on to talk Biden latest.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 18, 2024
If Trump wins, Biden doesn’t want to sit back on election night and feel regret he didn’t run.
But some feel the situation is untenable with the party establishment—donors, lawmakers—in revolt pic.twitter.com/t6wnI7NSNL
In The Washington Post, Nancy Pelosi is telling Democratic allies that the president “may soon” be persuaded to step down:
Pelosi’s not messing around: pic.twitter.com/Bg8BfqfN9U
— Conor Sen (@conorsen) July 18, 2024
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi has told some House Democrats she believes President Biden can be persuaded fairly soon to exit the presidential race amid serious doubts he can win in November, according to three Democratic officials familiar with her private discussions.
Following Biden’s halting debate performance, and the panic it unleashed among Democrats in and outside of Washington, Pelosi is taking a strong, behind-the-scenes role in trying to resolve the political crisis by playing intermediary for upset rank-and-file Democrats and relaying those messages to the White House.
The former speaker, who left her leadership post in 2022 but still wields enormous clout, has told California Democrats and some members of House leadership that she thinks Biden is getting close to deciding to abandon his presidential bid. Some Democrats fear that by staying in, Biden will end up handing the White House to Donald Trump, three Democratic officials said.
“Speaker Pelosi respects the confidentiality of her meetings and conversations with the president of the United States,” a spokesperson for the former speaker said.
Biden’s campaign advisers continued Thursday to dismiss talk of replacing him on the ballot. “I don’t want to be rude but I don’t know how many more times we can answer that. Joe Biden has said he is running for President of the United States. Our campaign is moving forward,” Quentin Folks, deputy campaign manager, told reporters at a news conference outside the Republican National Committee in Milwaukee.
While Democratic disunity and chaos are good, we must hope these developments are false. Yes, we must hope Biden’s communications team is right, and the president will remain for the projected Electoral College blowout he’s about to experience. The latest round of polls shows that Trump is leading in all the crucial battleground states. Even Virginia is now showing Trump with a slight lead over Biden. The president has remained adamant that the polls are wrong. However, it’s becoming clear that forces within the Democratic Party, some very powerful voices at that, want him gone, and this weekend might be the final opportunity to make a change.
"Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer have communicated to senior party leaders that they would not be interested in serving as Harris’s running mate, according to a person familiar with the candidates in the mix to join Harris atop the ticket" https://t.co/PChXvUNFt3
— Nick Field (@nick_field90) July 18, 2024
At this point, I'm confident the Republicans can defeat anyone the Democrats put up should Biden be wheeled into political retirement. Still, it's becoming more likely that he will lose his re-election bid. For now, he holds the Democrats hostage since he has the pledged delegates. We shall see what happens this weekend.
hmm... https://t.co/9nviW3cCSd
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) July 18, 2024
Joe, please stay.
1. Arizona (+7)
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) July 18, 2024
2. Georgia (+4)
3. Michigan (+2)
4. Nevada (+4)
5. North Carolina (+4)
6. Pennsylvania (+3)
7. Wisconsin (+5) https://t.co/YKtWxCHBxc
🚨Trump has moved ahead of Biden in the RCP Average in Virginia. https://t.co/FwDFIGOgHa pic.twitter.com/Mwgg6Ie9Mp
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) July 18, 2024
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