In a separate conversation, a person close to Biden told the president directly that he should end his candidacy, which the person said was the only way to preserve his legacy and save the country from another Trump era. Biden responded by strongly disagreeing with that view and saying he was the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Democratic leaders issued brief statements after the meetings that acknowledged only what had happened but said little or nothing about the substance. Neither the Biden campaign nor the White House provided public summaries of the meetings.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden would be at the top of the ticket for private meetings with Schumer and Jeffries. “The president told both leaders that he is the party’s nominee, that he plans to win, and that he looks forward to working with both of them to accomplish his 100-day agenda to help working families,” Bates said in a statement.
Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in California and a close ally of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), became the latest and most prominent House member to call on Biden on Wednesday. race Adding to the president’s challenges, he was diagnosed with Covid-19 on Wednesday, forcing him to curtail his campaign schedule.
Even before last month’s presidential debate, Biden has stumbled repeatedly, with internal polls of Democrats showing his support in key districts trailing his 2020 levels by a significant margin, according to people familiar with the data. Biden’s team had long hoped the debate would boost that number, but it didn’t.
“Democratic House polls show no change in the Congress candidate’s position after the debate,” said a person familiar with the data, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
In the Senate, Democrats hold a 51-49 majority, but longtime Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), who recently turned independent, is not seeking re-election, meaning the GOP will almost certainly retake his seat. Even if Democrats win every other contested seat, the outcome will be split 50-50 — meaning whichever party wins the White House will control the Senate, as the vice president will cast the tiebreaking vote in the chamber.
That has worried many Senate Democrats, with Biden trailing Trump in several battleground state polls where Democratic Senate candidates continue to lead. — a sentiment Schumer expressed to Biden in their meeting. “Chairman Schumer communicated the comments of his caucus,” said Alex Nguyen, the senator’s spokesman.
In private meetings with large groups of lawmakers, Biden has rejected the notion that he is losing to Trump or hurting other Democrats, and has cited polls as a defense, though he has not specified which ones prove his point. People explained about this.
Jeffries and Schumer’s individual warnings were a striking message from party leaders and reflect a bleak outlook among many Democrats after Biden’s debate performance. Nearly two dozen members of Congress have publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race, and several elected officials privately share that sentiment.
Pelosi and former President Barack Obama People who have spoken about the state of the race in recent days have privately expressed concern about the president’s path forward, according to people familiar with their conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private. Obama spoke with Biden after the debate, offering his support as a sounding board and personal adviser to his former vice president.
In recent days, Biden has begun an energetic, sometimes combative effort to listen to the concerns of fellow Democrats, meeting with nearly five groups of House lawmakers. He has also spoken privately with party leaders, including Pelosi and Rep. James E. Clyburn (SC).
Biden spoke by phone Friday with Rep. Suzanne Delfin (D-Wash.), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which coordinates the party’s House races, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity. Conversation is private. A DCCC spokeswoman declined to comment.
While their path to retaining the Senate majority has looked shaky for some time, Democrats see a clear path to winning back the House. Republicans now control 220-213. With Trump leading Biden in the polls, Democrats fear that a failure to retake the House would give Trump and the far-right wing of the Republican Party free rein to remake Washington.
The day after the meeting with Biden, Jeffries sent a letter to his Democratic colleagues to report the conversation, noting that he had requested the meeting.
“In my conversation with President Biden, I expressed firsthand the insightful, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together,” Jeffries wrote.
After his meeting Saturday, Schumer said in a statement, “I sat down with President Biden this afternoon in Delaware; We had a good meeting.
In recent days, even Democratic lawmakers and top strategists working on Biden’s re-election bid have expressed growing concern that the president is not getting a complete picture of the state of the race. In particular, they worry that he hasn’t met with his campaign’s pollsters, relying instead largely on the advice of a dwindling circle of longtime aides.
The virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden weeks before the Aug. 19-22 Democratic National Convention has played out a back-and-forth over whether to proceed with the call. Some Democrats say this is a necessary step to ensure that Republicans cannot challenge Biden’s candidacy because it comes too late; Others complain that it was a ploy to confirm his appointment before delegates met.
On Wednesday, the co-chairs of the convention’s rules committee issued a letter saying a virtual roll call would take place, but they promised it wouldn’t be rushed and wouldn’t happen before Aug. 1. The announcement came after some Democratic lawmakers. started protesting the process and urged the party to quit.
Paul Kane, Mariana Sotomayor and Lee Ann Caldwell contributed to this report.
