Top Biden Donors Still Urge His Ouster as Schiff Joins Defectors

For some Democratic donors, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump hasn’t altered the calculus over President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.

To them, the matter is still simple: Biden needs to step aside for the party to have any chance come November.

One said a new Democratic nominee is even more necessary now for the party to claim some momentum. Another said Biden is privately losing support from those who backed him in the days immediately following his widely panned June 27 debate. Others are still threatening to withhold millions of dollars from a ticket with the president at the top — though acknowledge that might not be enough to prompt a change.

Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic donors and fundraisers, who requested anonymity to speak freely, reveal a deepened sense of gloom after the shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania galvanized support around the former president while easing a public pressure campaign on Biden to reconsider his bid. 

Meanwhile, elected officials are anxious about losing not just the White House, but also seats in the US House of Representatives and control of the Senate. House Democrat Adam Schiff on Wednesday joined the chorus of calls for Biden drop out, as the prominent lawmaker said in a statement that he has “serious concerns” about the incumbent’s ability to beat Trump. He joins at least 19 other Democrats in the House and one senator that have called on Biden to step back. 

An up-and-down press conference last week and a rare Oval Office address urging unity have done little to assuage lingering concerns about the ability of Biden, 81, to overcome widespread voter angst about his age. An -NORC survey conducted July 11-15 found 65% of Democrats say he should withdraw, and that 48% of them are dissatisfied with him as the nominee, up from 38% before the debate.

What’s more, his request to tone down rhetoric may undercut a frequent theme of his campaign and a key pillar of donor support: that Trump poses a threat to American democracy. 

“Trying to recapture a narrative is going to be incredibly difficult — I don’t know that you can restart it with the same kind of velocity and fever pitch that it had before without some kind of new event,” said Rachel Bitecofer, a Democratic strategist and political scientist. 

“There’s no winner in this war of replace Biden or not replace Biden,” especially as it drags out, she said. “Party disunity is incredibly toxic.”

A Biden campaign representative pointed to the president’s repeated rebukes of calls for him to drop his reelection bid, with the candidate emphasizing that he’s “all in.” Biden has said he doesn’t “care what the millionaires think” and that he is “the best qualified person to do the job.” The campaign raised $127 million in June, its best month of the election cycle.

But Biden is also giving reasons that would cause him to reconsider his stance. In an excerpt of a BET News interview that is slated to air in full Wednesday evening, Biden said he would reevaluate his decision to stay in the race “if I had some medical condition that emerged.”

Time Limit

Time is running out for Democrats to make a change — and it’s virtually impossible unless Biden willingly steps aside. As it stands, the party is set to virtually nominate him in early August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention later that month. 

Democrats had considered holding the vote as early as July 21, but pushed the date back after criticism over expediting the process.

“It’s hardly a sign of strength if after trying to run out the clock, you suddenly cancel the fourth quarter of the game,” said John Petry, founder of Sessa Capital, who gave to Democrats who are calling for Biden to step down.

Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the primary process that is poised to crown Biden began months ago and that party rules spell out next steps — rules she says too few people bear in mind.

“Never before in my life can I see such ignorance and disrespect of the process,” she said in an interview. “To the extent there are donors, members of the media and some activists and pundits who are asking us to disenfranchise 2024 Democratic voters, I encourage them to read the rules.”

Possible Paths

Betting markets and financial markets, meanwhile, are growing increasingly convinced of two things, which Democratic donors fear are interrelated: That Biden will be the party’s nominee, and that Trump will win the November election.

The deep-pocketed Democratic donors who spoke with Bloomberg acknowledge their already limited power to sway Biden has only weakened after the assassination attempt on Trump, and bemoan that a two-week window passed after the debate without decisive action. 

One donor is hoping that a call for unity gives Biden cover to avoid a rematch of the 2020 election, which Trump has falsely claimed was stolen, and cede to another candidate. But they note that everything seems to be on hold for now and wouldn’t expect any change until the party convention. 

Another donor said one way Biden could thread the needle would be to acknowledge the limitations of age — Trump is 78 — and pass the torch to a younger candidate.

Others can’t square how an intra-party contest would play against the backdrop of a pledge to come together — and wonder why anyone else would even want to step into the fray at this point rather than reserving their political capital for 2028. 

Mike Novogratz, for his part, indicated he’s forging ahead in finding an alternative to Biden. Citing a report that Democrats were standing down, the billionaire said on X: “Not me.”

Prior to the shooting, which killed one person and left two others critically wounded, a quiet confidence had built that a groundswell of congressional Democrats were going to publicly speak up, which would persuade Biden to step aside.

But now many donors, who had already been largely confined to watching and waiting like the rest of the country, are resigned to letting time pass from the shocking attack before reviving any efforts to shake up the ticket. 

Some are holding out for additional polling to send Biden a message, as he’s suggested surveys that indicate he can’t win would cause him to rethink his campaign. Still others expect another Democrat, like Vice President Kamala Harris, would largely fare the same as the president — something that Trump himself suggested in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview.

“There’s a perception among much of the elite class of the Democratic orbit that he is unelectable,” Bitecofer said of Biden. But, most likely, “if you put in a different candidate, it’s still going to be a toss up.”

“That’s because this election is not really about Democrats,” she said. “It’s about Donald Trump, Donald Trump and Donald Trump.”

With assistance from Josh Wingrove.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.