“This is the first time we’ve had a Republican president at this stage of the election in over 20 years,” Bennet said in an interview with CNN’s Caitlin Collins. “Donald Trump is going to win this election, probably in a landslide victory, take control of the House and the Senate.”
“To me, this isn’t about polls, this isn’t about politics. This is a moral question about the future of our country,” Bennet continued. “It’s critical that we face the issues we face. If we come together, this country is on a path to electing Donald Trump again.”
Biden has stressed that he has no plans to drop his candidacy after his poor performance in the June 27 debate, arguing that party elites are trying to force him out of the race. At the same time, his aides and allies have actively worked to assuage the concerns of Democratic lawmakers and discourage them from speaking out publicly about them. To that end, Biden wrote to members of Congress on Monday arguing that the debates on his candidacy should end now because they are hindering efforts to defeat Trump.
Efforts by the Biden camp to stave off further defections appeared to be paying off on Monday, when key party figures including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, as well as members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voiced strong support for Biden’s candidacy.
But many lawmakers continue to privately express concern about the president’s falling approval ratings and question whether he can regain the trust of a broad range of American voters who say they no longer believe he can get the job done.
Bennet voiced his concerns after a tense lunch with other senators on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He acknowledged that he had expressed the same concerns to colleagues at a lunch earlier in the day. He did not explicitly call for Biden to resign, but said in an interview with CNN that the White House has “done nothing to indicate that it has a plan to win this election” since what he called a “disastrous debate.”
“I think they need to do that,” he added.
During the luncheon, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who is facing an uphill battle for re-election, said he had serious doubts about whether Biden could win the presidential election, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Asked for comment, Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz did not directly respond to Bennet’s remarks, but instead maintained that “there are still days until Election Day and the work to count every single vote is far from over.”
“No one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and protecting our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of getting out there and campaigning to win the support of voters,” Munoz said in a statement.
