Gov. Maura Healey said she believes President Joe Biden can beat former President Donald Trump in November even as she again called on him to “evaluate” whether he is the best Democrat to run for the White House this election cycle.
Healey has walked a thin line for the past week between offering support for Biden and being one of the first state executives to suggest he bow out of the 2024 presidential election. Political pressure has grown for Biden to step aside since a disastrous debate performance last month.
A week after jetting off to Washington to meet with Biden and other Democratic governors in the wake of the debate, Healey did not say Wednesday if Biden should exit the race but said “yes, he can” when asked if he could win.
“Whatever the president decides, I will be all in and supportive and focused on working to defeat Donald Trump,“ she said in the lobby of her State House office. “… Again, that’s a decision that the president has to make as to whether or not he wants to continue to be the one, to be the nominee.”
The governor has tied herself to Biden’s re-election campaign as a top surrogate and has touted her close relationship as a boon to Massachusetts.
But she has also joined a growing chorus of Democrats who question his ability to take on Trump in the wake of a CNN debate in which the 81-year-old had a halting performance that sent his party into a tailspin.
Biden has so far rejected the calls.
“I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” he wrote in a letter to Democrats in Congress.
Healey previously acknowledged Biden’s “poor debate performance” as questions about the president’s age and acumen reached a fever pitch. She later released a carefully worded statement after the private meeting in Washington calling on him to “evaluate” his path forward.
And a week after The New York Times reported that Healey described Biden’s political position as “irretrievable” during a separate closed-door call with governors, she declined to comment on the remark and the president’s cognitive and physical abilities.
“I’m not going to discuss private meetings or conversations with the president,” she said. “I’m not going to comment on my private conversations with the White House or anyone on the campaign.”
Democratic voters are largely split on whether Biden should remain the Democratic Party’s nominee moving forward or if someone else should take up the mantle, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released last week.
Some local Democratic state lawmakers have also said Biden should make way for a new presidential nominee, including Sen. Jason Lewis of Winchester and Rep. Mike Connolly of Cambridge.
Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.