A steady trickle of Democratic calls for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race has paused since Saturday’s attempted assassination of his opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Last week, congressional Democrats were consumed with discussions about whether Mr. Biden was the best candidate to beat Mr. Trump in November and lead the party to victory in key House and Senate races.
The list of lawmakers publicly calling on Mr. Biden to step aside as the party’s nominee grew every day last week until it hit 20 on Friday with 19 House Democrats and one Democratic senator asking the president to pass the torch to a new leader.
No new calls have popped up since then after Saturday’s shocking assassination attempt on Mr. Trump at his rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where a lone gunman fired multiple rounds at the former president, grazing his right ear, killing a bystander and critically injuring two others.
Lawmakers in both parties condemned the assassination attempt and wished Mr. Trump well. Republicans and Democrats alike called for a cooling of the heated political rhetoric to discourage further political violence.
The lawmakers who had called on Mr. Biden to step aside had been contributing to that rhetoric by describing Mr. Trump as an “existential threat” to democracy. So it’s not a surprise that they’ve halted public statements to that effect in the wake of the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life.
The last Democrat to join the chorus of calls for Mr. Biden to drop out was Rep. Mike Levin of California on Friday.
“We must prevail against the incalculable threat Donald Trump poses to the American institutions of freedom and democracy,” Mr. Levin said in his statement calling on Mr. Biden to pass the torch. “Donald Trump actively seeks a bleak authoritarianism and the overthrow of the values which have guided us towards justice and prosperity for nearly two and a half centuries.”
Mr. Levin was the first lawmaker to directly tell Mr. Biden he should step down during a call the president held with Congressional Hispanic Caucus members on Friday. Mr. Biden also spoke with other Democratic caucuses on Friday and Saturday as he tried to salvage support for his candidacy.
Rep. Jason Crow, Colorado Democrat, said Sunday on CBS News that he asked “tough questions” of Mr. Biden during his call with the centrist New Democrat Coalition on Saturday. While he encouraged all parties to “take a step back” with their rhetoric following the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump, he suggested the questions about Mr. Biden’s candidacy will not go away.
“I do believe right now, unless there’s a major change, that there is a high risk that we lose this election,” Mr. Crow said. “We want to see a change.”
Mr. Biden heard that message “very clearly” and promised to provide House Democrats with more information to address their concerns, Mr. Crow said.
“We don’t have a lot of time, but we do have some time to answer those questions, have that tough debate,” he said. “And that’s what we’re going to do. And then we will decide, together, the best path to go forward.”
Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who recently switched his party affiliation from Democrat to independent, also signaled that questions about Mr. Biden’s viability won’t go away. In a lengthy statement Monday, he accused both parties of trying “to impose their own morality on everyone else, as if there were no room in America for people to live together while holding different values.”
Mr. Manchin specifically mentioned “forces” on the right “that would undermine our democracy to hold onto power” and “extremists” on the left pursuing policies out of step with the majority of Americans. The Democratic Party must do more to broaden its appeal or risk losing the presidency, the Senate majority and its chance of flipping the House, he said.
“Sadly, their vocal support for President Biden in the face of his irreparable debate performance [is] just evidence of how much control the far left has over the current administration,” Mr. Manchin said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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