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pass the torch
8 More Democrats in Congress Urge Biden to Step Aside
"It is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders," four congressmen said in a joint statement. "We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy."
Jul 19, 2024
Seven Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one senator on Friday added their voices to growing calls for President Joe Biden to step aside as the party's candidate to face former Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.
"Our country faces an existential threat this November," Congressman Sean Casten (D-Ill.) wrote in a Chicago Tribune opinion piece. "In the conversations I've had with the folks it is my privilege to represent, there is tremendous fear about this moment. People wonder whether our nation—and indeed, our world—can survive another Trump administration."
"If the upcoming election is a referendum on past performance, future promises, and character, I have every confidence Biden would win," Casten continued. "But politics, like life, isn't fair. And as long as this election is instead litigated over which candidate is more likely to be held accountable for public gaffes and 'senior moments,' I believe that Biden is not only going to lose but is also uniquely incapable of shifting that conversation."
"It is with a heavy heart and much personal reflection that I am therefore calling on Biden to pass the torch to a new generation," he added. "To manage an exit with all the dignity and decency that has guided his half-century of public service. To cement his legacy as the president who saved our democracy in 2020 and handed it off to trusted hands in 2024 who could carry his legacy forward."
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) on Friday explained his new call for Biden to step aside in a series of posts on X, while Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) released a lengthy statement, which was dated for Thursday.
Four other House Democrats—Reps. Jesús G. "Chuy" García (Ill.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Marc Veasey (Texas)—issued a joint statement urging 81-year-old Biden to withdraw from the presidential contest.
"Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders," they said. "We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy, protect our alliances and the rules-based international order, and continue building on the strong foundation you have established over the past few years."
"We must face the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign. These perceptions may not be fair, but they have hardened in the aftermath of last month's debate and are now unlikely to change," they warned. "We believe the most responsible and patriotic thing you can do in this moment is to step aside as our nominee while continuing to lead our party from the White House."
Since the debate, Biden has faced public and reported private pressure to "pass the torch" from a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, public figures, and organizers. Many of the members of Congress have been white "moderates," while leading progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have stuck with the president.
"Democrats have a deep and talented bench of younger leaders, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who you have lifted up, empowered, and prepared for this moment."
Notably, García, Huffman, and Pocan are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. García is also part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus—whose political arm formally endorsed Biden on Friday morning. Veasey is the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to openly urge the president to step aside.
"Democrats have a deep and talented bench of younger leaders, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who you have lifted up, empowered, and prepared for this moment," the four congressmen said. Polling released Friday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job as president.
"Passing the torch would fundamentally change the trajectory of the campaign. It would reinvigorate the race and infuse Democrats with enthusiasm and momentum heading into our convention next month," they concluded. "Mr. President, you have always been our country and our values first. We call on you to do it once again, so that we can come together and save the country we love."
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) similarly argued in a Friday statement urging Biden to exit the race that "by passing the torch, he would secure his legacy as one of our nation's greatest leaders and allow us to unite behind a candidate who can best defeat Donald Trump and safeguard the future of our democracy."
After surviving an assassination attempt last weekend, Trump this week announced Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate and formally accepted the GOP nomination in a long, rambly speech at the Republican National Conventional in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Democratic National Convention is planned for August 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois, but the party is planning a "virtual roll call" among delegates to nominate Biden—who is currently isolating in Delaware due to a Covid-19 infection—before the event. Biden said Friday that he plans to be back on the campaign trail next week.
Heinrich is the third Senate Democrat to push Biden to withdraw, following Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) on Thursday and Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) last week. They are joined by over 20 other House members and various other current and former officials.
There is also the newly launched Pass the Torch campaign and fresh calls from the Step Aside Joe campaign sponsored by RootsAction.org, which started urging Biden to not seek reelection long before last month's disastrous debate.
"Twenty months ago, just after the 2022 midterm elections, we launched a campaign for Joe Biden to voluntarily be a one-term president, and the Step Aside Joe campaign has continued to urge that realism prevail over wishful thinking," the initiative said in a statement Friday. "As our country has faced the extremist Republican threat, we have persisted in pointing out that the Democratic Party needs a much stronger standard-bearer than Biden, someone capable of articulating a popular vision that could galvanize a solid electoral majority."
"It's sad, in fact tragic, that the party leadership has waited until just the last few days to publicly acknowledge what has long been apparent: Biden is unable to speak effectively or act decisively to counter the MAGA movement," the campaign added. "It shouldn't have taken a thoroughly disastrous debate performance to set off alarm bells. Long overdue, Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race can open up vital possibilities that his candidacy has foreclosed."
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If Biden 'Must Step Aside,' Why Aren't Democrats Filling the Streets to Demand It?
So far, one journalist noted, "the loudest voices trying to force him out of the race are elites: major media columnists and wealthy donors."
Jul 09, 2024
The number of congressional Democrats urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the race for the White House grew on Tuesday, but many of their colleagues—along with other elected officials and voters—remain supportive of the aging Democratic leader's effort to beat former Republican President Donald Trump a second time.
Since Biden's poor debate performance last month sparked concerns about whether he can defeat Trump and effectively serve another term, the president has remained defiant, insisting that he is determined to stay in the race—as he made clear with a Monday letter to Democrats in Congress that he also shared on social media.
Not only does the movement to convince Biden that he "must step aside" before the Democratic National Convention in August appear to be failing, "it's failing in a very predictable way," according to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect.
"Though polling has consistently registered massive public concern with Biden's age and his ability to withstand the rigors of a high-stakes campaign, let alone another term in office until he turns 86 years old, the loudest voices trying to force him out of the race are elites: major media columnists and wealthy donors," he wrote Tuesday. "They lack democratic legitimacy and the public's respect, even as they are expressing the popular will. And they have given Biden the opportunity to parry their attacks simply by employing the politics of resentment."
"There is one group trying to change this. A very new organization (it literally started last Friday afternoon) founded by a handful of Democratic organizers called Pass the Torch is trying to motivate ordinary Democrats to speak out about the need for a stronger ticket to defeat Donald Trump," Dayen pointed out. While the group has a petition and is talking with convention delegates, he added, "an effort like Pass the Torch will really only derive legitimacy from having a large number of rank-and-file voices behind it."
Reflecting on Biden and Trump's disastrous debate in a Tuesday opinion piece for Common Dreams, writer and retired mental health worker Phil Wilson asserted that "members of a sane society would be thundering angrily through the streets given the choice between a smoldering ghost and an aspiring Nazi monster."
Wilson continued:
Who chose these two? Why are 50 million people curled up on couches, wrapped around plastic bowls of popcorn while these terrible, inept, and heartless fools cough up lies and trivial asides? We reflect upon levels of dementia and Nazi wannabe evil as if they were existential givens. Of course we all must decide on November 5th which genocidaire we prefer, the one who bombed the children of Gaza or the one vowing to deport up to 20 million innocent people. Do we pick the one who can barely remember his own name or the guy with a swirling vortex of hatred orbiting his eyeballs?
"This election is a farce—the dying throes of a criminal society, the death spasms of a plundering oligarchy that once devoured most of the world and now cannibalizes its own," he concluded.
Also writing for Common Dreams on Tuesday, University of Essex professor Peter Bloom argued that "the recent Trump-Biden debate served as a grotesque apotheosis of 'great man' politics, laying bare the dangerous fallacy of entrusting democracy to the outsized personalities of flawed individuals."
"The future of democracy, in the U.S. and beyond, depends on our ability to move beyond the cult of personality and reclaim politics as a collective endeavor," according to Bloom. "The alternative—a continued descent into gerontocratic oligarchy thinly disguised as populism—is too dire to contemplate. As we watch two aged politicians compete for the chance to lead a nation in crisis, let it serve as a wake-up call. The era of great men is over. The real work of rebuilding our democracy is just beginning."
Biden's campaign and supporters continue to frame his reelection as crucial to the fight to save U.S. democracy—particularly given that a victorious Trump would be armed with new king-like powers, thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
As John Nichols, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, noted Monday, Biden himself "says that the country is at 'an inflection point,' where the future of American democracy is at stake."
"This requires more than putting in your best effort in a controlled setting," Nichols wrote, describing Biden's Friday rally in Wisconsin as "serviceable" but far from what is needed. "It requires an absolutely determined candidate and a big, bold, risk-taking campaign that inspires Wisconsinites, and voters nationwide, to defeat Trump and Trumpism. If Biden really is determined to stay in this race, he owes it to himself, his party, and his country to be all in."
The president has received similar advice from progressives in Congress. Since the debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020—has stood by Biden but also stressed that he must "do better," for which the senator has received some criticism.
Progressives in the House were noticeably quieter—as Slate's Alexander Sammon noted last week, "There's no real upside for Squad members to put themselves in the line of fire during an already bitter public deliberation"—until multiple members of the informal group confirmed support for Biden on Monday.
"The matter is closed," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told reporters Monday evening, citing her weekend conversation with Biden and his repeated statements over recent days that he has no intention of stepping aside. "He is in this race and I support him."
Rep. @AOC: President Biden has made clear that he is in this race. The matter is closed. Biden is our nominee. He is in this race and I support him. He is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions. Not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to… pic.twitter.com/MOvUu3VQU5
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 8, 2024
"Now what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions, that has committed 34 felony crimes, and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee," she continued.
Ocasio-Cortez explained that she has "communicated" to Biden that winning the election will require Democrats to "pivot and increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country," including rent and mortgage relief as well as the expansion of Medicare and Social Security.
"And if we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a cease-fire, and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November," she added. "That's what I'm committed to and that's what I want to make sure we secure."
With lawmakers back on Capitol Hill following the Independence Day recess, Democrats in both chambers held caucus meetings on Tuesday. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters, "As I've said before, I'm with Joe," Politicoreported that "many typically chatty senators almost entirely refused to talk with press about their caucus' conversation."
House Democrats met earlier in the day. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who ended his longshot primary challenge to Biden and endorsed him in March, told reporters, "If this has been vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling."
"I made my case eight months ago and I think it's time for others to share their perspectives," he said. "I'm deeply disappointed in a political system that has resulted in this dynamic that we now face."
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) joined the small but growing contingent urging him to step down, saying: "I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country. That's why I am asking that he declare that he won't run for reelection."
As the Pass the Torch campaign highlighted on social media Tuesday, some congressional Democrats are worried that Biden remaining at the top of the ticket could have a negative downballot impact.
At least one congressman who reportedly urged Biden to exit the race over the weekend, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), appeared to change course. He declined to comment on what he privately told Biden but said: "The president made very clear yesterday that he's running... We have to support him."
After House Democrats' meeting, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) toldPolitico, "My personal takeaway is that Joe Biden has tremendous support from the Democratic caucus, and we're going to move forward."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, suggested in a Monday statement that even as public and private conversations are taking place within the party about the best way forward, nobody should forget the core differences between what Democrats and Biden represent compared to Trump and his Republican Party.
"Make no mistake, the foundation of our democracy is at stake in this election," said Jayapal.
"Any reporter or pundit who is asking about or talking about the aftermath of President Biden's debate performance and his health," she continued, "should also be spending at least the same amount of time and energy talking to Republicans about why they are still supporting a convicted felon who incited an insurrection and wants to be dictator on day one."
"Republicans should be calling for Donald Trump to step down as a candidate for president," she added. "The press should be covering for the American people the dozens of lies he told at the debate and the horrific statements he continues to make about immigrants and women. They should be asking every single Republican member why they support the democracy-destroying Project 2025."
While Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025—spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, one of the sponsors of the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin next week—the Biden campaign and other critics have called "bullshit" on the frequently dishonest former president's claims.
"After trying and failing to cover up his deep ties to Project 2025 authors and Heritage Foundation leadership, Trump is putting his MAGA besties on full display," Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said of the convention sponsorship Tuesday. "Donald Trump can't hide from Project 2025—it's his agenda, his vision, and his dangerous and extreme plan for America's future."
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