Obama tells allies Biden needs to reconsider his re-election bid, reports Washington Post

18 Jul 2024

Biden’s campaign is now pursuing a razor-thin path to re-election, with four of the seven most competitive states looking increasingly out of reach.

Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that Joe Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the US President needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing multiple people briefed on Obama’s thinking.

Biden’s re-election bid faced more turmoil after reports that top Democratic leaders had privately pushed the 81-year-old incumbent to end his campaign, while Donald Trump (78) was set to accept the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have all expressed deep concerns directly to Biden in recent days that he will not only lose the White House but also cost the party any chance of winning back the House of Representatives in the 5 November election, according to reports in multiple news outlets.

The White House said Biden was isolating and continuing to work after the president tested positive for Covid-19 during a campaign visit to Nevada, forcing him to return to his Delaware home to work in isolation.

His campaign is now pursuing a razor-thin path to reelection, with four of the seven most competitive states looking increasingly out of reach. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, says it believes it is now competitive in Democratic-leaning states including Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia. “We’re expanding the map,” a senior campaign adviser speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters.

So far, only 20 out of 264 Democrats in Congress have called on Biden to drop out following his poor June debate performance against Trump, which raised questions about Biden’s ability to win and to carry on in a high-pressure job for another four years if he were to succeed.

Representative Adam Schiff, a senior House legislator running for a Senate seat in California, became the latest Democrat to call on Biden to bow out on Wednesday.

White House officials believe Schiff was backed by Pelosi, according to a White House source speaking on condition of anonymity. That could be an ominous sign for Biden, as the former House speaker is still one of the most influential Democrats in Washington. “Nancy is all over this. She doesn’t miss,” said the White House source.

Some legislators think Biden now may be more open to stepping aside. “He’s done what’s best for America ... I think he’ll keep doing so,” said Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper. “He’s working towards that.”

Hickenlooper declined to say whether he believed Biden should step aside as a candidate.

Republican unity

Meanwhile, Trump will cap the four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with his first public address since he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday, in which a bullet grazed his ear.

Campaign staffers say the experience had prompted him to revise his acceptance speech to emphasise inclusiveness, rather than attacks on Biden’s Democrats.

“I don’t think you can go through what he went through on Saturday, really a near-death experience, and not come out on the other side impacted,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law who serves as Republican National Committee co-chair.

The convention has put Republican unity on display, in contrast to the divisions roiling Democrats, with former rivals including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley offering strong endorsements of his candidacy.

Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate and another former critic-turned-loyalist, presented himself on Wednesday as the son of a neglected industrial Ohio town who will fight for the working class if elected in November.

As he chronicled his hardscrabble journey from a difficult childhood to the US Marines, Yale Law School, venture capitalism and the Senate, Vance (39) said he understood working Americans’ struggles.

“I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts,” said Vance. “But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.”

As the first millennial on a major party ticket, Vance, who has embraced Trump’s mixture of conservative populism and isolationist foreign policy, is well-positioned to be the future leader of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

Vance has opposed military aid for Ukraine and defended Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

For Trump’s political opponents, his hold on the party portends a darker moment in which he follows through on his promises to expand the power of the presidency, exact revenge on his enemies and threaten longstanding democratic institutions.

Vance would advance “an agenda that puts extremism and the ultra-wealthy over our democracy”, the Biden campaign said on Wednesday. DM

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