Democratic senator warns that Biden will lose to Trump, potentially in ‘landslide’

Sen. Michael Bennet said Tuesday he thinks former President Donald Trump will beat President Biden — potentially by “a landslide” — in November and that Democrats may lose their Senate majority too.

The Colorado Democrat appeared on CNN on Tuesday evening to confirm the network’s reporting from earlier in the day that, during a private Senate Democratic caucus lunch, he had told his colleagues he does not think Mr. Biden could win reelection.

CNN also reported that Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the two most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection this year, said they think Mr. Biden will lose.

However Mr. Bennet, who is not up for election this cycle, would only confirm his comments.

“I did say that behind closed doors,” he said, noting he had received many questions about his comments and “I figured I should come here and say it publicly.”

Mr. Bennet said the presidential race “is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country.”

He said Mr. Biden was up 9 points in the polls around this time in 2020, when he went on to beat Mr. Trump, and Hillary Clinton was up 5 points in summer 2016 before losing to Mr. Trump that fall.

“This is the first time in more than 20 years that a Republican president has been up in this part of the campaign,” Mr. Bennet said of Mr. Trump’s 3-point polling advantage. “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election — and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House.”

Despite citing polling as his evidence, Mr. Bennet said his concern is more “moral” than political.

“It’s critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again,” he said. “We have four months to figure out how we’re going to save the country from Donald Trump.”

No Senate Democrat has yet publicly called on Mr. Biden to step aside as the party’s nominee. Mr. Bennet stopped short of that in the CNN interview.

When pressed why he wouldn’t call on Mr. Biden to drop out if he thinks he will lose, Mr. Bennet said he and his colleagues are having that debate this week.

“I’m sure President Biden has a different view of his prospects in this election than I do,” he said. “But we should be having a discussion about that. And the White House in the time since that disastrous debate I think has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, that they have a convincing plan to win in the battleground states.”

Mr. Bennet suggested the White House has been “brushing off the American people’s concerns.”

He said he’s heard from Colorado voters who have said they recognize troubling signs of Mr. Biden’s aging, having gone through similar experiences with older family members.

None of the Democratic senators said during the private caucus lunch that Mr. Biden should drop out of the race, Mr. Bennet said. When pressed whether he could get to that point, he did not rule it out but signaled a preference not to go that far.

“I have no pleasure being here at all tonight just saying what I said in the caucus,” he said. “This is something for the president really to consider.”