Democratic senators on Capitol Hill are still largely unified in their desire to see President Joe Biden give up his reelection effort, according to PBS NewsHour’s Lisa Desjardins.
Biden and his team came out firing to start the week, publicly sharing a letter addressed to congressional Democrats in which he argues that he’s “the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024″ and called for discussion of him stepping aside “to end,” accusing those engaging in such discussions of hurting the effort to defeat Trump.
He followed that up with a feisty phone call into Morning Joe during which he asserted that “the average voter” still wants him to be president despite the wealth of polling data indicating that that is not the case.
“I’m getting so frustrated by the elites,” declared Biden during his interview.
But Desjardins’s reporting suggests that those elites remain unpersuaded by Biden’s theory of the 2024 presidential race and his case for remaining in it.
“NEW: Senate state of play from multiple senior Dem staffers and Senators,” tweeted Desjardins after both the letter and Morning Joe interview dropped. “There are few D senators pushing for Biden to stay in the race. (Yes, they’ve seen the letter.) The Warner meeting idea has been set aside, as senators think about what is the best way to do this.”
NEW: Senate state of play from multiple senior Dem staffers and Senators.
– There are few D senators pushing for Biden to stay in the race. (Yes, they’ve seen the letter.)
– The Warner meeting idea has been set aside, as senators think about what is the best way to do this.— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) July 8, 2024
It had previously been reported that Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was planning on convening a group of likeminded colleagues who hoped Biden would step aside this week.
Desjardins continued:
Dems are seeing internal polling, per three sources, that shows serious, growing issues now in MN, NM, VA and WI for Biden. There is frustration and questions about the WH messaging that seems to deny a deeper problem exists. One senator told me, everyone here has campaigned and, politically, “You know a death spiral when you see it.” For now, worried senators are expressing dismay privately/directly to the WH and campaign. They are carefully sorting out next steps.
FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average indicates that Trump has a 2.2% lead over Biden, while RealClearPolitics’ average has Trump up by 3.3%.