Three more House Democrats called on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race after Thursday night’s key press conference, a troubling sign for the incumbent as he plows ahead with his campaign despite concerns following last month’s disastrous debate performance.
Democratic Reps. Jim Himes (Conn.), Scott Peters (Calif.) and Eric Sorensen (Ill.) said Biden should step aside minutes after he concluded his roughly hourlong press conference, arguing he is not the strongest candidate to defeat former President Trump in November. They join 13 other House Democrats and one Senate Democrat, Peter Welch (Vt.), who have urged the president to step aside.
While the newest trio of opponents is fewer than the wave of resistance some had predicted would erupt after the press conference — which capped off the NATO summit hosted in Washington, D.C. — the number reflects the growing discontent with Biden inside the Democratic Party, and it is fueling questions about whether he can survive at the top of the ticket.
“The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism,” Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, and I hope that, as he has throughout a lifetime of public service, he will continue to put our nation first and, as he promised, make way for a new generation of leaders.”
Peters, who has served in the House since 2013, wrote in a statement that “the President’s record of accomplishments will not translate into similar success in his reelection campaign.”
“The debate raised real concern among elected leaders, supporters, and voters that the President will not be able to wage a winning campaign,” he added. “This was not a blip.”
“In 2020, Joe Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party,” Sorensen, a front-line lawmaker, said in a statement. “Today, I am asking him to do that again.”
Biden fielded questions from reporters for roughly 50 minutes during the press conference, touching on Ukraine’s war against Russia, the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, the rising threat of China and, the most prominent topic, concerns about his fitness for office and viability as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
“There’s a long way to go in this campaign,” Biden said. “So I’m just going to keep moving. Keep moving and, because, I’ve got more work to do.”
“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started,” he added at another point.
Perhaps the two most memorable moments of the night, however, were a pair of gaffes that put a spotlight on the president’s vulnerabilities that have been worrying Democrats since last month’s debate.
During his response to the first question of the evening, Biden referred to Vice President Harris as “Vice President Trump.” And shortly before the press conference, when introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden said “ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” before correcting himself.
“Really terrible. Of all of the gaffes,” a House Democrat told The Hill of the Zelensky-Putin mix-up.
The press conference was the latest test amid the fallout from Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, during which he stumbled over his words and at times appeared to lose his train of thought, prompting calls for him to bow out of the race.
The reaction to Thursday from House Democrats was a mixed bag. While the three lawmakers joined the calls for Biden to step aside, some of his allies defended him on social media. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), for example, wrote on the social platform X that she was “#RidinwithBiden,” lauding his handling of foreign policy and national security issues.
The House Democrat, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said Biden’s performance was “mixed.” Another Democratic lawmaker, who has previously told The Hill they think Biden should step aside, said “I think he was strong.” They did not respond when asked if the evening would affect their thoughts on Biden’s future.
The press conference and reaction to it are fueling questions about if, or when, more lawmakers may join the effort to push him out of the nomination.
Himes, who said he purposely waited to release his announcement until after the NATO conference concluded, signaled that more House Democrats could follow his lead in the coming days.
“I’m far from the only Democrat that believes this, that the numbers, the trajectory, what Americans feel in their bones right now suggest not only that Joe Biden would lose this race but that he or we would lose the Senate and the House,” he said on MSNBC in an interview.
“And the stakes are so high that we need to set aside that loyalty and that poetry and that romance and the charge of the light brigade and we all go down together, in favor of some really hard-nosed analysis about whether this is the way forward,” he added.
The congressman offered a warning to his colleagues: “If you don’t look at this in a cold hard way, you will be complicit in Donald Trump’s second presidency.”