Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas is the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. 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 said in a statement.
“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.”
Doggett argued that Biden should fulfill his campaign promise to serve as a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leadership.
“While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional. He has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process,” he said. “My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does its in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”
Although Democratic strategists and commentators raised alarms about Biden’s health condition following his blundering performance in last week’s presidential debate, not one Democratic lawmaker other than Doggett has publicly called on Biden to withdraw, though Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois did express an openness to replacing Biden on the ticket.
“I think his four years are one of the great presidencies of our lifetime, but I think he has to be honest with himself,” Quigley said Tuesday morning on CNN. “This is a decision he’s going to have to make.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) denied this week that Democrats were privately encouraging the president to step down.
“I don’t know who’s doing that,” Pelosi said. “I’m not doing it.”
Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer (D., N.Y.), First Lady Jill Biden, Hunter Biden, and a few other insiders, are the only ones said to have influence over the president’s ultimate decision.
“The Biden family doesn’t want to give up,” Michael LaRosa, a former special assistant to the president and Jill’s former spokesman told National Review‘s Audrey Fahlberg. “I know that sounds convoluted and more complicated than it is, but that’s based on how I’ve observed these people. In order to get to that group, it’s got to be Pelosi and Schumer. They’re the only ones that could ever influence that particular group. And they would have to make an argument that Democrats can still win, but not with your guy on the top of the ticket.”
In a Vogue cover interview published on Monday, Jill promised that she and Joe “will not let those 90 minutes” at the presidential debate “define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight.”