While many liberals were eager for a younger candidate in the 2020 and 2024 primaries, Senate Democrats have long been vocal supporters of the 81-year-old Trump’s reelection efforts.
“There’s no deal making. We have a candidate. He’s the leader of the free world. He’s the leader of our party and he’s objectively good at the job,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in an interview in late January.
“I think the president is in a very strong position,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said at the time.
Like more than two-thirds of the current Democratic caucus, Schatz, 51, and Ossoff, 37, have never sat down with Biden for a single day during his 36 years in office. They are from a generation of senators who only knew him as his 70th vice president and now 80th president. But like most Senate Democrats, they have been treated well and given close attention by White House officials.
But as Biden’s lackluster debate performance with former President Donald Trump weakens his case for the Democratic nomination, Senate Democrats have become less vocal about the president’s future.
As of late Saturday, no Democratic senators had publicly called for Biden to step down, but many remain concerned about whether he can mount an energetic campaign to defeat Trump and serve out another four years in office.
That’s in stark contrast to the House of Representatives, where five Democrats have formally called for his resignation and at least 10 have publicly expressed concerns about whether the plan should be reconsidered.
But those same Senate Democrats have remained relatively silent, which could signal a more ominous future. Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Washington on Monday to meet in person for the first time since the Senate went into its summer recess on June 20.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), known for his aggressive approach to local politics, has barely been seen in public since the June 27 debate.
“I support Joe Biden,” Schumer told reporters in Syracuse on Tuesday, acknowledging the president’s acumen.
He hasn’t made any television appearances or radio interviews to voice his support for the president, limiting his advice to a number of one-on-one conversations, including a phone call with Biden on Wednesday.
As The Washington Post’s Lee Ann Caldwell and Liz Goodwin first reported on Friday, behind the scenes, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia had been talking with other Senate Democrats about forming a group to call on Biden to resign.
Aides to Warner did not deny the efforts, and when asked about the reports while campaigning in Wisconsin, Biden said “only Warner” had discussed the issue.
The reaction suggests it could be a politically psychological blow if a group of Democratic senators publicly calls on Biden to step down.
When speaking publicly, Senate Democrats have tended to say they support the president but suggest he still needs to make a decision. A stronger rationale for mobilizing voters.
“The way Biden really persuades people is to campaign doing what Joe Biden does best: He’s not the politician who is best at speaking in front of 100,000 people,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters in Virginia Beach on Friday.
But Kaine, who was his vice presidential nominee in 2016, left open the possibility that someone else might lead the nomination.
“If Joe Biden says, ‘I can do it,’ I believe him, because he’s never given me a reason not to believe him,” Kaine said. “And if Joe Biden concludes that he can’t do it, I think he’s a patriotic man who would emulate George Washington and say it’s someone else’s turn.”
Hours before the debate in Atlanta, Ossoff hosted an event with local leaders and small business owners to promote Biden and Vice President Harris’ campaign. “I’m here to deliver a very simple message: We must reject the return of Donald Trump,” Ossoff said.
He said small businesses are “grateful for the able leadership that has kept Main Street at the center of this administration’s attention.”
Ossoff has been relatively quiet since the debate. His office provided the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a statement from an unnamed aide saying he “fully supports President Biden’s reelection” and slammed Trump as “the most dangerous presidential candidate in history.”
Schatz, one of the senators most active on social media, He hasn’t mentioned Biden by name since the debate ended..
“My best advice for the next 48 hours is this: If you’re going to panic and stare at a screen, use your energy to do something useful.” Schatz wrote: Two days after the debate.
He then provided links where liberal activists could volunteer with groups seeking to elect Senate Democrats, state assembly Democrats and key progressive advocacy organizations.
There was no link to the Biden-Harris campaign website.
In the days after the debate, their campaign maintained that no Democrats would call for Biden to step down before next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but that argument faded as House Democrats began calling for Biden to step down.
Within Schumer’s caucus, Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-Va.) came closest last weekend, and as The Washington Post reported, they made a concerted effort to stop Manchin from using his Sunday political talk shows to break with the president.
Efforts to rein in Manchin, who has officially changed party affiliations To Though he’s an independent this year, he still attends caucus lunches, and his actions are reminiscent of the summer of 1998, when congressional Democratic leaders scrambled to avoid defections over whether Bill Clinton should resign from office.
The reporters followed Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who served as Clinton’s vice presidential nominee in 2000 before leaving the party in 2006. Mr. Lieberman was considered the conscience of the Senate at the time, and many assumed he would call for his resignation following revelations of Ms. Clinton’s affair with an intern.
“Such conduct is not only inappropriate, it is immoral and harmful,” Lieberman said in his final floor speech.
But he did not call for Clinton’s resignation, nor did any of the Senate Democrats, and in the impeachment trial, all Senate Democrats voted to acquit Clinton.
As is the case today, House Democrats were less loyal: 31 voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry, and 5 voted to impeach.
Biden and Clinton are big Different situations.
Clinton had been re-elected by a large margin two years earlier, and voters were already well informed about his personal conduct: His approval ratings had soared throughout 1998 amid the sex scandal and remained steady in the months following the release of the special counsel’s explosive report.
Biden now faces re-election with a large portion of the public questioning his ability to do the job, and his debate performance further confirmed those concerns.
Only two members of Schumer’s caucus — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are scheduled to appear on political TV on Sunday.
Like Schatz and Ossoff, Murphy, 50, is a strong Biden defender who has spent much of the Senate recess behind closed doors. In an interview with local media on June 28, he stood by his support for Biden, but said he was “not going to whitewash” his debate performance.
Sanders, 82, has emerged as one of Biden’s most vocal surrogates, traveling around Wisconsin on Biden’s behalf during debate week. As he told The Associated Press on Tuesday, the president’s debate performance may have been “painful,” but he’s been in worse places.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to get Biden re-elected,” Sanders said.
Biden needs more senator supporters like Sanders to survive.
