President Joe Biden admitted Thursday night that he is prepared to step aside as the Democratic nominee if the new candidate can defeat Donald Trump, saying delegates “can do whatever they want” at next month’s party convention.
The 81-year-old opened the door to a replacement but insisted he had “overwhelming support” from his party and that polls point to him winning.
Thousands of delegates from across the country are preparing to travel to Chicago next month for the Democratic National Convention.
And despite Biden’s campaign in turmoil over the backlash over President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance and growing concerns about his fitness, delegates are preparing to vote for Biden as their nominee as planned.
DailyMail.com spoke to delegates from several states who are closely following calls from some Democrats for the president to resign, but who are prepared to nominate him without major objections.
President Biden is facing growing calls from some Democratic lawmakers to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, but the president continues to insist he is running
“I ran as a pledged Biden delegate, and he’s the nominee,” said Tennessee Rep. Megan Lange. “He’s the only nominee, and, you know, I think Biden has done a lot of good.”
Lange, who works on the Democratic campaign trail, said the other representatives she spoke with in her state’s delegation were all on the same page.
There are nearly 4,000 pledged delegates and more than 700 automatic delegates traveling to Chicago next month for the convention, which takes place August 19-22.
It’s a diverse group of Democrats, from young people still in school to seniors, from local party activists to federal elected and former top officials.
Thousands of them were chosen to represent their states in the presidential nomination process and pledged to keep their promise.
Behind the scenes, delegates are meeting weekly as they prepare for Biden’s official nomination.
More than 4,600 delegates will travel to Chicago from August 19-22 for the Democratic National Convention.
Some delegates told DailyMail.com that campaign and party officials had contacted them as recently as this week to reaffirm their support, as pressure mounted on the president to withdraw from the race.
Others said they hadn’t heard from the campaign in weeks and didn’t expect to.
Even before Biden’s poor performance in the debates, the campaign and the party were already canvassing delegates’ general attitudes toward the election and helping delegates with logistics to get to Chicago.
As Congress approaches, delegates have been privately discussing whether Biden is the best choice to defeat Donald Trump in November. Opinions are divided.
Some delegates following the debate warned their fellow delegates about his actions, including in group discussions.
President Biden during the presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27. Some delegates described it as a “bad day” for the president, while others said it raised concerns, but every delegate DailyMail.com spoke to said they support him as the nominee
President Biden held a press conference two weeks after the debate, in which he made a statement and then took questions for nearly an hour. While the president made several major gaffes during the speech, including saying “Vice President Trump,” he also answered several in-depth international and domestic policy questions with multiple follow-up questions and fired off a few zingers.
Others argued that there is still much work to be done between now and November to turn out voters, but they still believe Biden is the best choice.
Tennessee Rep. Maverick Flowers said all the delegates he spoke to after the debate were disappointed and concerned or even “a little scared.”
“But I think as time goes on, people will start to rally behind the president and his campaign again,” he said.
Flowers ultimately said he has “no reservations” about voting for Biden as a delegate because of what the president has accomplished.
Delegates DailyMail.com spoke of rejected discussion of delegates even considering another nominee at the convention. Some high-profile voters have already spoken; others have pointed out that talk of a dramatic convention shakeup is not feasible at this time.
“I think people, the people who are talking, don’t really understand the process that we’re going through this year,” said Rep. Jasper Hendricks of Tennessee, who was also a delegate in 2016 but is from Virginia. “We don’t vote on the convention. We vote for the convention.”
Hendricks referred to the virtual process that will take place before delegates arrive in Chicago.
He said the debates he heard about the rule changes for Congress came not from the delegates but from outside voices, and he is confident he can cast his vote.
“I support the president and his team because they’re doing their job. They’re doing a great job right now,” he said. “That’s my attitude toward it.”
Wisconsin Rep. Donald Dantzler, a member of the Fitchburg City Council, was among the representatives DailyMail.com spoke to who were unwilling to consider who could replace Biden if he decides to step down.
President Biden speaks in Madison, Wisconsin during a campaign rally on July 5
He said Biden had a bad debate but that didn’t define how he would be able to run the country. He noted that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have both visited his battleground state multiple times this year, including Biden holding a campaign event there last week.
“I take those headlines with a grain of salt,” Dantzler said of the debate’s aftermath.
“For every George Clooney, there are two people working hard,” he said of the actor who wrote a scathing op-ed this week calling on Democrats to choose a new candidate.
Dantzler argued that Congress is primarily about delivering the Democrats’ message.
“I really hope that by attending this convention we can get this story out to people and make them understand what is really at stake and what can really happen if the other side comes back into power,” he said.