President Joe Biden admitted Thursday night that he was open to stepping aside from the Democratic nomination if the new candidate could beat Donald Trump, saying delegates could do “whatever they want” at the party’s convention next month.
The 81-year-old opened the door to being replaced but insisted he has “overwhelming support” from his party and that polls show he is winning.
Thousands of delegates from across the country are preparing to travel to Chicago next month for the Democratic National Convention.
And even as Biden’s campaign was rocked by the fallout from President Joe Biden’s shaky debate performance and growing concerns about his fitness, delegates are preparing to vote for Biden as their nominee as planned.
DailyMail.com spoke to delegates from several states who are paying close attention to calls from some Democrats for the president to step aside, but are prepared to nominate him anyway without further reservations.
President Biden is facing growing calls from some Democratic lawmakers to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, but the president insists he will run
“I ran as a committed Biden delegate, and he’s the nominee,” said Tennessee delegate Megan Lange. “He’s the only nominee, and, you know, I think Biden’s done a lot of good things.”
Lange, who works on Democratic campaigns, said others she has spoken to in her state’s delegation have been on the same page.
There are nearly 4,000 pledged delegates and more than 700 automatic delegates headed to Chicago next month for the August 19-22 convention.
They are a diverse group of Democrats, from young people still in school to seniors, local party activists, federally elected officials and former top officials.
Thousands of them were elected to represent their states in the presidential nominating process and pledged to keep their promise.
Behind the scenes, delegates have been holding weekly calls as they prepare to officially nominate Biden.
More than 4,600 delegates will head to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention from August 19-22.
Some delegates told DailyMail.com that campaign and party officials had been reaching out to reconfirm their support as recently as this week, amid growing momentum for the president to drop out of the race.
But others said they had not heard from the campaign for weeks and did not expect to hear back.
Even before Biden’s poor debate performance, the campaign and party had been asking how delegates felt about the election overall and helping them navigate the logistics of getting to Chicago.
As the convention approaches, there have been some private conversations among delegates about whether Biden is the best choice to beat Donald Trump in November and mixed opinions on the matter.
Some delegates who watched the debate alerted their colleagues about his performance, even in group chats.
President Biden at the presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27. Some delegates described it as a “bad day” for the president, while others said it raised concerns, but all delegates DailyMail.com spoke to said they back him as a candidate.
President Biden held a press conference two weeks after the debate, where he made a statement and then took questions for nearly an hour. While the president made several major mistakes while speaking, such as saying “Vice President Trump,” he also answered several deep questions about international and domestic politics with multiple follow-up questions and threw in some witty comments.
Others argued there is a lot of hard work to be done between now and November to get voters out to vote, but they still believe Biden is the best choice.
Maverick Flowers, a delegate from Tennessee, said every delegate he spoke to after the debate expressed disappointment, concern or even being “a little scared.”
“But I think as time has gone on, people are starting to support the president and the campaign again,” he said.
At the end of the day, Flowers said he has “no reservations” about voting for Biden as a delegate because of what the president has accomplished.
Delegates at the DailyMail.com meeting rejected the possibility that delegates would even consider naming another candidate at the convention. Some prominent voters have already spoken out, while others said talk of a drastic restructuring of the convention is not feasible at this point.
“I think people, those who are speaking out, don’t really even understand the process that we’re going through this year,” said Tennessee delegate Jasper Hendricks, who also served as a delegate in 2016, but from Virginia. “We’re not voting at the convention. We’re voting before the convention.”
Hendricks referred to the virtual process that will take place before delegates arrive in Chicago.
He said the debate he has heard about rule changes for the convention is not coming from delegates but from outside voices and he is confident in casting his vote.
“I support the president and his team because they are doing a good job. They are doing a great job right now,” he said. “That’s my attitude on it.”
Wisconsin delegate Donald Dantzler, who sits on the Fitchburg City Council, was one of several delegates DailyMail.com spoke to who were not prepared to consider who might replace Biden if he decided to step aside.
President Biden speaks in Madison, Wisconsin, at a campaign event on July 5
He said Biden had a bad debate, but that it didn’t determine how he might govern the country. He noted that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have visited his battleground state several times this year, including the campaign event Biden held there last week.
“I take those headlines with a grain of salt,” Dantzler said of the fallout from the debate.
“For every George Clooney there are two people trying,” she said of the actor who wrote a scathing op-ed this week calling on Democrats to elect a new candidate.
Dantzler argued that the convention will be about spreading the Democrats’ message.
“I really hope that by attending this convention we can convey that narrative to people and get them to understand what’s really at stake and what could really happen if the other side comes back to power,” he said.
