A group of business leaders is calling on President Biden to step down and install his successor as the top Democratic presidential candidate.
The Leadership Now Project, a coalition of 400 politically active current and retired corporate executives who lean left but are not entirely left, issued a statement Wednesday calling on Biden to “pass the baton of this year’s presidential nomination to the next generation of highly qualified Democrats.”
The statement is unsigned, but Daniella Barrow-Arles, the group’s founder and CEO, said it is supported by the overwhelming majority of Leadership Now Project members.
Members include Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Famous Ice Cream; Thomas W. Florsheim Jr., CEO of shoe maker Waco Group; Eddie Fishman, managing director of investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co.; John Pepper, former CEO of Procter & Gamble; and Paul Tagliabue, former commissioner of the National Football League.
The statement comes as major Democratic donors are increasingly concluding that Democrats would have a better chance of keeping the White House if they nominated another candidate, following Biden’s weak performance in last week’s presidential debate with President Donald J. Trump. But most donors and big funding groups on the left have refrained from making it public, fearing a backlash.
In a statement, the Leadership Now Project called the possibility of a second Trump term “an existential threat to American democracy,” and during the debate Biden said: “Our failure to mount an effective counterargument to Trump now means we risk a devastating defeat in November.”
“We have heard from many people who share our deep concerns about the current situation but are afraid to speak up,” the statement said, concluding by urging others to “join us in this urgent call.”
Baru Ahles, a business executive who served as a senior adviser to the State Department during the Obama administration, said in an interview that he was worried by the messaging coming from the White House and Biden supporters in recent days.
“The perception that this is a decision made by a small number of families is not good for democracy,” she said, adding that it is “completely at odds with what people think after watching the debate.”
Her group, which is made up of nonprofits and political action committees, supports candidates in both parties and recently attracted anti-Trump Republican former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Biden.
