The Democratic presidential candidacy of President Joe Biden appeared to be slipping on Thursday, as he grappled with increasingly public warnings from top party lawmakers while isolated at home due to a Covid-19 infection at his beach house in Delaware.
Biden’s representatives insisted that he “was not wavering” and remained determined to run, but the pressure continued to mount. The president, experiencing mild symptoms, took calls from his campaign team and discussed the political crisis threatening to consume his re-election bid.
Speculation about whether Biden would step aside, when, or how dominated the political conversation before his rival Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Milwaukee.
The hardest blow: a report from the Washington Post stating that former President Barack Obama told his allies that Biden’s path to victory was greatly diminished and that he believes his old running mate must seriously consider whether his campaign remains viable.
Next, the New York Times quoted several people close to the president stating that he had begun to accept the idea that he might not be able to win and that he would have to exit the race.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also reportedly told other Democratic lawmakers that she believes Biden could be convinced to withdraw relatively soon. And a Democratic House member said that Pelosi and Jeffries have been actively working to explain to Biden the grave outlook facing him and the party.
A senior advisor to Biden insisted that the president remained a candidate and that there had been no change in his view, while other loyal allies suggested it was a manufactured pressure campaign. But even former Biden aides acknowledged that his support within the party was rapidly degrading.
Chris Coons, the Democratic senator from Delaware, Biden’s home state, said the president had asked him for advice on polling and his standing among senators.
“I think he’s weighing very seriously the opinions of those he trusts and admires, those who have served alongside him,” Coons said in an interview with CNN, adding that Biden deserved time “to clarify the way forward for the American people.”
John Hickenlooper, a senator from Colorado, became the latest Democrat in the upper chamber to publicly suggest that it would be in the country’s interest for Biden to step aside. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued statements that did not deny having pressured the president to exit the race nor expressed their support for Biden’s candidacy.
And Blackstone executive and billionaire Democratic donor Jon Gray said he hoped Biden would consider the presidency as “a very demanding physical job.”
Democratic senators in competitive contests are preparing to ask Biden to step aside, with only the question of when and how to announce their position, according to a Senate advisor who requested anonymity to discuss internal thinking.
People close to Biden described a growing sense among allies that the end could be near, or even inevitable. However, with the president isolated due to his diagnosis and increasingly reliant on a small circle of loyal aides, it was difficult to discern exactly how Biden was processing the latest developments, according to those familiar with the situation.
Biden still planned to continue with his scheduled campaign travel for the coming week, ABC News reported. But the president also seemed more receptive to listening to requests to exit the race and had asked for polling on how Vice President Kamala Harris would perform as the head of the candidacy, the network said.
Some of Biden’s allies believed that outsiders were looking to push the president out of the race by suggesting he was open to stepping aside. Others said it was clear that Biden would reconsider his position, given the damage his campaign had suffered.
In any case, it is virtually certain that the president’s illness will hinder his efforts to respond to critics who have demanded that he prove he has the stamina to face Trump and serve another four years.
The result is a political atmosphere that has left Biden’s aides exasperated, with few opportunities to escape the death spiral consuming his campaign. Prediction markets saw Harris as more likely than the current president to win the election on Thursday.
Top Democrats are betting that the growing pressure from party lawmakers and close friends will convince Biden to exit the race as soon as this weekend, Axios reported Thursday morning.
In Milwaukee, frustration was palpable as campaign manager Quentin Fulks spoke to reporters. Fulks scolded the media for focusing their questions on other Democrats’ calls for Biden to withdraw, while insisting that Biden “is doing well” and “continues to make calls and work.” The campaign, he said, was not “working on any scenario in which President Biden is not at the head of the candidacy.”
“The sooner we stop talking about this and talk about what’s at stake and what we have heard during the first three nights of this convention, and what we are going to hear tonight from Donald Trump, the better,” he added.
But Biden’s diagnosis is likely to keep him sidelined in the days following the Trump nomination convention. That will complicate the president’s ability to regain momentum at a moment when Democratic unrest over his candidacy has intensified, with more prominent party members pushing him to step aside.
In an interview with Univision recorded Wednesday just before his diagnosis, Biden said he did not feel betrayed by those urging him to step aside, although he acknowledged that questions about his age were valid after his “terrible” debate performance.
“And that’s why people are saying now: ‘Well, that was just one thing, but he’s 81 years old. What happens when – 84 years old, he’s 85 years old?'” Biden said, amid bouts of coughing.
If Biden continues to test positive for Covid for an extended period, he will not be able to hold the kind of rallies, interviews, and other events that his Democratic colleagues have urged him to conduct. Even if he returns to campaigning or participates in interviews from home, he could have a poor performance if coughing, fatigue, and congestion persist.
Biden “continues to experience mild upper respiratory symptoms” and is taking Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid to alleviate them, his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter released by the White House on Thursday.
The president also has not demonstrated an ability to change the narrative, even in the days leading up to his diagnosis.
Hickenlooper said in an interview with Reuters late Wednesday that he believed Biden was “working to” make a decision about his continued candidacy.
“It’s his decision, but there are more and more signs that it would be best for the country”, Hickenlooper said when asked about the possibility of Biden resigning.
Schumer reportedly told Biden it would be better for Democrats if he withdrew his candidacy, according to ABC News on Wednesday. Jeffries told Biden he was a burden on the party’s campaign efforts in Congress, according to the Washington Post. Pelosi privately told him that she did not believe he could defeat Trump, CNN reported.
When asked about the report, Jeffries’ office offered no sign of support for the president.
“On behalf of the Democratic House group, it directly expressed the full range of perspectives, views, and conclusions reached on the path forward, after extensive colleague-to-colleague discussions,” according to a statement.
Biden’s team had attempted to leverage a two-day visit to the battleground state of Nevada to quell talk of his age and sharpness while bolstering support among Black and Latino voters, who have shown signs of drifting away from him.
On Wednesday, the president was set to speak at a UnidosUS meeting in Las Vegas when the organization’s president informed attendees that Biden could not attend because he had fallen ill.
It was a disappointing end to a trip that was meant to stabilize his campaign after three weeks of turmoil sparked by his faltering performance in the debate against Trump.
Biden appeared to be in a weakened state as he traveled back to his Delaware home to self-isolate. He slowly climbed the stairs while boarding Air Force One and seemed to require assistance getting into an SUV upon landing.