It appears that elected Democrats are falling back in line behind President Joe Biden’s candidacy, which makes their admissions about his lack of ability all the more insane.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) became the first Senate Democrat to really pour on the pessimism. Bennet said privately, and then admitted publicly, that Biden was on track to lose and drag the whole party down with him. “I did say that behind closed doors,” Bennet said, reiterating publicly that “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with it the Senate and the House.”
Despite that, Bennet is still not willing to call on Biden to drop out. Neither is Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) who also doesn’t think Biden can win and even called on his colleagues to abandon Biden if that was necessary for them to win reelection. Veasey’s own stance is that it would be “kind of awkward” if Biden “is going to come to Texas to campaign, and I said he should drop out.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is in the same boat. She won’t give a concrete answer on whether Biden should stay in but insists that “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.” This, despite the fact that Biden has made his decision, repeatedly insisting he isn’t leaving the race. Pelosi isn’t taking yes for an answer from Biden, even as she refuses to give no as an answer on whether Biden should be running.
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Unless this is part of a strategy to slowly build pressure on Biden to drop out of the race, these are crazy things to say about the party’s presidential nominee while you support his nomination. Each and every one of these comments can and will be used against Biden throughout the campaign if he stubbornly refuses to drop out, which he has less incentive to do given that Bennet, Pelosi, and Veasey are all refusing to explicitly call on him to do so. With Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) walking back his call for Biden to withdraw, it seems the momentum in the party is building back around Biden, even as his Democratic colleagues are openly sabotaging him.
Democrats see the problem with Biden and acknowledge everyone else sees it, but (with a handful of exceptions) they refuse to try and push Biden out of the race. They want credit for acknowledging Biden’s decline without actually saying he should leave the race, trying to bleed any political gain from this dilemma without admitting that they were trying to sell voters on Biden and his deteriorating mental state for another four years.