REHOBOTH, Del. — As President Joe Biden faces a growing number of urgings from elected officials to give up on his reelection bid, his political allies are actively seeking ways to publicly demonstrate that Biden still has broad support among key members of the Democratic base, according to three Democrats familiar with the discussions.
Democrats said the new effort is aimed at tapping into the anger and frustration of some voters who feel disenfranchised by attempts to oust the candidate they voted for, and at directing pressure on party insiders against Biden.
In some cases, the demonstrations have been spontaneous, emanating from organizations and supporters who worry that intraparty infighting is hurting the goal of defeating Donald Trump. They include black clergy, Latino community leaders and progressive activists, demonstrating grassroots support for the president.
But three Democrats familiar with the discussions said the Biden campaign is trying to use it to shape its defense of the president.
“If Democratic elites drive Biden out and disenfranchise 14 million voters like me, Democrats will be no different from Republicans,” said a senior Biden surrogate who has focused on outreach to Black voters. “Democrats will lose the so-called defense of democracy argument and will be seen as racists.”
Mobilizing the core of the Democratic base, especially Black and Latino voters in battleground states, is something of a warning to big donors, party leaders in Washington, D.C., and candidates running in November’s elections, who need those voters’ cooperation to win their own elections and beat Trump, whoever he faces. It’s an effort by Biden with fewer options to rebuild a campaign that is losing support from lawmakers and donors.
That warning was heard loud and clear by some of the party’s top Democratic donors on a conference call with Vice President Kamala Harris organized by the Biden campaign on Friday, from leaders of organizations that mobilize Black and Latino voters in battleground states.
“We have continuously spread the message within the party that we will protect democracy, but now democracy has been hijacked by the party elites and donors. [and] “Instead of being guided by the will of the voters or the people, the media should be leading the way,” Melissa Morales, founder of Somos Votantes, said, according to participants in the call.
Harris would be the biggest beneficiary if Biden were to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. As Biden’s running mate, she would be the first to inherit the campaign’s vast financial resources. If she tops the Democratic field, she would be the first Black woman to run for a major party nomination.
The effort to build grassroots support is the latest development in an internal Democratic infighting that has intensified in the three weeks since Biden’s uneven debate performances. Biden has so far resisted growing calls to end his campaign and has bristled at longtime allies who have urged him to do so.
One Democratic official involved in congressional races said Biden’s strategy of trying to turn voters against his critics reflects the limits of his options and influence.
“That’s what you say when you’re in trouble,” the official said.
Republicans have latched onto the idea that Democrats, who have argued that protecting democracy is a top priority in the 2024 election and that Trump is a threat to America’s democratic process, are trying to subvert the will of voters.
“We can’t have Democratic elites suddenly decide to change course just because they look at the polls and say, ‘This is terrible,'” Trump ally Ric Grenell told reporters on Monday at a Bloomberg News roundtable on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.
“He was the Democratic nominee in every state,” Grenell added. “Why are we talking about undermining our democratic process so easily?”
A person close to the president said Biden’s advisers’ strategy aims to build on what they felt was a successful test run at a rally in Detroit a little more than a week ago, where a Black pastor gave a stirring introduction to Biden, capping a speaking program that included local supporters and progressive allies in key battleground states.
This is an attempt to flesh out the claims Biden made a week after his lackluster debate performance that there is a conflict between party elites and ordinary voters, particularly Democratic voters.
“There’s a lot of anger out there at the sense that they’re trying to remove the president that they voted for from the ballot,” a senior Biden aide said.
But many voters didn’t have much of a choice: Leading Democrats chose not to run this election cycle, and the primary dates were timed to coincide with the sitting president. Democratic primary voters often had no one to choose from other than Biden, except for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), a candidate who defied popular expectations.
And concerns about Biden’s age were exacerbated by his performance in last month’s debate after many had voted.
Some Democratic candidates are listening to voters who are worried about whether Biden can continue his campaign and hold onto the presidency for another four years.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) told NBC News that many people referring to Biden as he campaigns in the key 2024 battleground state are “expressing real concern about his future.”
“And that’s a concern that I have to address and listen to,” said Casey, a longtime ally of Biden, who is in a tight re-election fight.
During a conference call with Democratic donors on Friday, Harris simply expressed confidence, people who attended the call said.
“We’re going to win this election,” she said, according to people who took part in the call.
Indeed, while some of Biden’s advisers and family are discussing what an announcement to withdraw from the race might look like (and the president has privately indicated he is willing to do so if there is no path to victory), the Biden campaign is planning as if he were to continue in the race.
“I look forward to returning to the campaign trail next week,” Biden said in a written statement Friday in response to Trump’s remarks as he accepted the Republican nomination.
The president continued to recover from COVID-19 at his Delaware Beach home on Saturday, while nearly a dozen Democrats joined a growing list of elected officials calling on Biden to stop campaigning, and a key group of the president’s advisers continued to assess his political health.
Many close to Biden believe Democrats are so worried about this fall’s elections that they are putting their own interests above the party’s, without giving enough thought to what would happen if a vacuum were to form at the top of the nomination list, a senior Biden campaign official noted in a memo released Friday morning.
“He is the presumptive nominee and we have no plans to run a replacement candidate,” Battleground States Director Dan Kanninen wrote. “It’s time to stop fighting. The only person who wins when we fight is Donald Trump.”
Kanninen’s memo argued that voters the campaign has been targeting in recent weeks remain committed to his support, despite the Democratic Party’s infighting gaining public attention.
Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told campaign staff on a conference call Friday that they should focus on their work and shut down speculation about Biden’s future.
“The people the president is listening to are saying stay in the race, keep going, keep fighting, we need you. Those voices aren’t going to be as loud as the voices on TV, but remember, people in this country don’t watch cable news,” she told a source familiar with the call.
After suffering humiliating defeats in his first two nominating contests in 2020, Biden rejected calls to withdraw, arguing that he had not yet heard from the party’s true base, particularly black voters, a claim borne out by his landslide victory in the South Carolina primary, a victory bolstered by the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, who continues to back Biden.
Now Biden’s team and other supporters argue that removing the president from the ticket would be a betrayal of the voters who supported him in the 2024 primary.
Clyburn said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday that he had not spoken to Biden since they met in Nevada early last week, but that he had been on the phone with donors and voters.
“From what I’m hearing, 85 percent of the people who have contacted me support the president,” he said.
