One congressional Democrat is condemning fellow members of his party who are breaking ranks and urging President Joe Biden to step aside in the 2024 race.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a two-term lawmaker from the Bronx, argued on Monday that the discordance of some members turning on Biden while others are standing with him after a poor debate performance is hurting the Democratic Party’s chances of winning the presidential contest.
“Regardless of where one stands on the question of President Biden’s political future, the intra-party mixed messaging strikes me as deeply self-destructive,” Torres said in a statement posted to his personal X account. “Those publicly calling on President Biden to withdraw should ask themselves a simple question: what if the President becomes the Democratic nominee? The drip, drip, drip of public statements of no confidence only serve to weaken a President who has been weakened not only by the debate but also by the debate about the debate.”
He added, “Weakening a weakened nominee seems like a losing strategy for a presidential election. The piling-on is not so much solving a problem as much as it is creating and compounding one. The process by which we decide how to move forward matters as much as the decision itself.”
Some Democrats inside and outside Congress have begun pressing Biden to end his campaign and give someone else the chance to take on former President Donald Trump in the November election. Several House Democrats are among them, including Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Mike Quigley (D-IL). Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who hails from a battleground district, joined them on Saturday.
“Given what I saw and heard from the President during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the President himself following that debate, I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump,” Craig said in a statement. Declaring there was “simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency,” Craig added that she “respectfully” called on Biden to “step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as President and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”
Axios published a report on Saturday that cited unnamed lawmakers saying the handful of House Democrats who had already come forward urging Biden to end his bid would soon have company. “The drip drip is about to be more than that,” said one. A second said, “We’ll certainly amp up the public pressure as needed.” The Associated Press reported that some leading congressional Democrats, including Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Jim Himes (D-CT), and Mark Takano (D-NY), said in a private call convened by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) that Biden should step aside.
Others in Congress, including House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), have stuck with Biden while suggesting that he should work to reassure supporters if he remains in the race. Yet more have been more unabashedly supportive of the incumbent. “I’m with Joe Biden,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at a press conference after the debate, according to Syracuse.com. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that a planned meeting this week meant to rally Senate Democrats to ask Biden to leave the presidential race has been canceled.
Biden sent a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday stating that “despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.”
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