WASHINGTON — As Democrats debate whether President Joe Biden should remain in the race for 2024, turbulence within the party is growing over whether his Vice President Kamala Harris is next in line for the job or whether a “mini-primary” should be launched quickly to choose a new nominee before the party convention in August.
Harris took part in her campaign’s fundraising tour in the windy town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Saturday and received an endorsement from the state’s Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who said before the visit that if Biden were to step down, her vice president was “ready to take over.”
At the event, which organizers said raised $2 million and was attended by 1,000 guests, Harris did not mention calls for Biden to drop out of the race or for her to replace him, instead repeating one of her usual campaign phrases: “We are going to win this election,” she said.
“Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in equality? Do we believe in the promise of America? Are we then prepared to fight for it?” she told a cheering crowd. “When we fight, we win.”
But it is far from certain that Harris will be nominated to lead the party, which would be a historic moment for the party as it nominates the first Black and South Asian woman as its presidential candidate. Top officials, including House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, favor an open process, with some arguing that it would strengthen any Democratic candidate against Republican Donald Trump.
“If you think there is a consensus among people who want Joe Biden out…that they will support Kamala, Vice President Harris, you are mistaken,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a widely commented-on social media post this week.
With the public airing of their deliberations, Democrats are prolonging an extraordinary period of uncertainty and upheaval. Biden faces weighty options this weekend that could determine the direction of the country and his party as he heads into the November election.
This creates a striking juxtaposition with Republicans, who, after years of bitter and chaotic infighting over Trump, are energized and welcoming the former president’s far-right takeover of the GOP, despite his criminal conviction in a bribery case and his pending federal criminal indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Despite a week of campaign breaks, interviews and insistence that he is the best candidate to face Trump in a rematch, Biden has failed to quell the outcry. Skeptical Democrats doubt he can hold on to the White House after his failed debate performance last month, and worry he will take with him his party’s hopes of control of Congress.
On Saturday, Rep. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who believe it is time for Biden to leave the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch” to Harris.
Other parliamentarians are expected to speak in the coming days. Donors have expressed concerns.
“There’s no joy in acknowledging that he shouldn’t be our nominee in November,” said Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats who has called for Biden to withdraw from the race.
From his beach house in Delaware, Biden, 81, is isolating himself after announcing a COVID infection, but also politically with a small circle of family and close advisers. White House physician Kevin O’Connor said Saturday that Biden’s symptoms were improving, but he remained plagued by a dry cough and hoarseness. He received separate briefings Saturday on domestic and national security issues, the White House said.
The president’s team insisted he was ready to resume campaigning next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” presented by Trump.
“Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
But outside the Rehoboth enclave, debate and passions are intensifying.
Very few Democratic lawmakers pushing for Biden’s ouster mentioned Harris in their statements, and some said they favored an open nomination process that would allow the party to support a new candidate.
A person familiar with Pelosi’s thinking said that while she is a friend and admirer of the vice president, she believes that anyone who wants to become president would be better served by such a process, believing that the candidate who emerges as the nominee would be stronger to win the election. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to describe Pelosi’s thought process.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a Pelosi ally who has called on Biden to step down, said on MSNBC Friday that some sort of “mini-primary” that would include Harris made sense.
Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Peter Welch of Vermont have both called on Biden to withdraw from the race and said they would support an open nominating process at the convention.
“Having the ballot open would strengthen who the final candidate is,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Other Democrats say it would be politically unthinkable to choose anyone other than Harris, and logistically impractical with a virtual nominating vote scheduled for early next month, before the Democratic convention opens in Chicago on Aug. 19.
Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, who has called on Biden to step down, has explicitly endorsed Harris as her replacement.
“To give Democrats a strong and viable path to winning the White House, I call on President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice President Harris to run to become the Democratic presidential nominee,” McCollum said in his statement.
The impasse over Biden’s political future has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month before the Democratic National Convention, which should be a unifying moment to choose their incumbent president to take on Trump. Instead, the party finds itself at a crossroads not seen in generations.
It’s unclear what else the president could do, if anything, to reverse the trend and win back Democratic lawmakers and voters who are wary of his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term.
Biden, who sent a defiant letter to congressional Democrats vowing to stay in the race, has yet to visit the Capitol to shore up his support, an absence noted by senators and representatives.
The president held a series of virtual conversations with various caucuses last week, some of which ended badly.
Associated Press journalists Mary Clare Jalonick, Seung Min Kim, Farnoush Amiri and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
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