MILWAUKEE — As rifts among Democrats continue to widen over who should be at the top of their party’s ticket come November, officials here maintained Thursday morning that President Joe Biden will remain in the race.
Seeking to redirect public attention back to former President Donald Trump, who’s slated to formally accept his party’s nomination on the final day of the Republican National Convention, Democrats repeatedly said Biden is committed to running in 2024.
“Our campaign is not working through any scenarios where President Biden is not at the top of the ticket,” Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said at a morning news conference. “He is and will be the Democratic nominee.”
While Republicans projected a message of party unity from the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee in the days after Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Democrats’ internal divisions over their nominee’s fitness for office have remained at the fore.
Reports based on anonymous sources said Wednesday that Democratic congressional leaders told Biden he would not only lose to Trump but he would drag down the party’s candidates elsewhere on the ballot. They may also have urged Biden not to run (prompting a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to dismiss the reporting as “idle speculation”). Biden, meanwhile, left the campaign trail Wednesday after he tested positive for COVID-19 following a Las Vegas campaign event, sidelining him to Delaware.
And the public calls for Biden to step aside resumed when Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California became the first Democrat after Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump to push Biden “to pass the torch” and withdraw from the race.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday he “couldn’t disagree more on this issue” with Schiff, who’s favored to become the state’s junior senator come 2025 and is an influential figure in his party with close ties to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Padilla also rejected the notion that Republicans are truly unified, saying the party is rather “falling in line” behind Trump. While some of Trump’s rivals in the primaries spoke in support of him this week, others, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, were not in attendance.
“Donald Trump has bent this political party to his will,” Padilla said. “They do not allow for dissent.”
In Milwaukee, Democratic counter-programming this week has been light following the assassination attempt against Trump over the weekend. The shooting caused the Biden campaign to pause planned events.
The party has still maintained a muted on-the-ground presence. Earlier this week, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who’s up for reelection this year, headlined a Milwaukee roundtable with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and the two later in the day hosted a private fundraiser. Booker went on to campaign for the Biden-Harris ticket on Tuesday, and a Wednesday fundraising email also suggested he was rallying Democrats in Wisconsin that day.
On Thursday, Democrats attempted to keep the spotlight on Trump and what they see as the disastrous consequences that would come from the implementation of the “Project 2025” policy blueprint for a second term drafted by some of Trump’s allies.
But questions about Democrats’ ability to unify — especially amid the ongoing divisions among congressional Democrats — plagued officials.
While more than a dozen House members have called on Biden to drop out, he has received strong backing from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, said Thursday that she’s “very comfortable” the party “will be more unified” moving forward, dismissing the ongoing conversations as a product of the “diversity” of viewpoints among Democrats.
“We’re having some family discussions. I’m comfortable that we will work through it,” she said. “President Biden has given us the answer that he’s staying in the race, and we’re supporting him.”
Fulks reiterated that Biden “is not wavering on anything” — a message the campaign has been projecting since the first presidential debate nearly three weeks ago that ignited dissent within the party.
Those urging him to leave the race have voiced concern that Biden could cost Democrats a shot at maintaining control in the Senate, where the party currently has 51-49 control, and flipping the House, which would happen if they pick up a net of four seats.
“Folks are acting like before the debate, we somehow said this was going to be a landslide victory for Democrats,” Fulks said. “We have always said this race is going to be close, we know it is a margin-of-error race in all the battleground states, and we’re going to continue to do the work to make sure we’re winning.”
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