Representative Raúl Grijalva (D., Ariz.) became the second elected Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to leave the party’s presidential ticket since his debate against former president Donald Trump.
In an interview with the New York Times, Grijalva said he thinks there are other members of his party who have a better chance of defeating Trump in November than the current president.
“If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,” Grijalva said. “What [Biden] needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”
The only other Democratic lawmaker to publicly urge Biden to step aside to this point has been Representative Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas), who on Tuesday issued a statement saying the president should withdraw from the race.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump,” Doggett wrote. “I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
Doggett, who currently holds the seat former president Lyndon B. Johnson represented during his time in Congress, compared Biden’s situation to that of Johnson in 1968.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson,” Doggett continued. “Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same.”
Grijalva may not be the last Democratic congressman to go public on the issue of Biden’s candidacy. Dozens of lawmakers in the party are considering signing a letter demanding that the president make way for a different name at the top of the ticket, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.