U.S. President Joe Biden talks to reporters before boarding Marine One to depart the White House in Washington, U.S., March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic opposition to U.S. President Joe Biden's reelection bid widened on Thursday, as another four members of Congress called on him to end his campaign ahead of a news conference where the 81-year-old incumbent will try to quell doubts about his mental abilities.
So far, 13 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate's 51 Democrats have appealed publicly to the president to withdraw from the race, and more could follow if Biden stumbles or loses his train of thought during his solo news conference on Thursday evening, where he will have to respond to questions on a wide range of topics -- including his fitness for another four years in the White House.
Biden's campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since his poor debate performance against Donald Trump, his 78-year-old Republican rival.
In a memo, Biden's campaign argued that the debate has not dramatically shifted the race and aimed to win undecided voters by shifting the focus to Trump, a convicted felon who faces two more criminal prosecutions for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.
"No one is denying that the debate was a setback. But Joe Biden and this campaign have made it through setbacks before," the memo said.
Four more Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday called on him to end his campaign: Brad Schneider of Illinois, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Ed Case of Hawaii, and Hillary Scholten of Michigan.
"I am forever grateful for his leadership and service to our nation. The time has come, however, for President Biden to heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership," Schneider said in a prepared statement.
None of the party's leaders in Congress have called for Biden to end his candidacy, though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday declined to say he should stay in the race.
Top campaign aides met with Senate Democrats at lunch to shore up support.
As they left a lunch meeting with Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and other top aides, several other Senate Democrats said Biden should remain their standard bearer.
Others said they needed to see Biden put more effort into the race. "Some of my concerns are allayed, some others have been deepened," Senator Richard Blumenthal said.
There were signs of concern within Biden's camp as well.
The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Harris would fare no better than Biden if she were the Democratic nominee, as both were statistically tied with Trump.
The New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering ways to convince him to drop his reelection bid, while NBC News reported that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the election.
ALL EYES ON THE NEWS CONFERENCE
Congressional Democrats will be watching closely at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time (2230 GMT), when Biden is due to field questions from the White House press corps at the end of a NATO summit in Washington.
At his first formal solo news conference since November 2023, Biden will have to speak on a wide range of topics - including likely questions on whether his doctors have found evidence of mental decline.
It will be Biden's most unscripted appearance since the June 27 debate, where he appeared to lose his train of thought several times and stumbled over several answers.
An interview with ABC News last week raised further alarms when Biden said he would be satisfied if he lost the election as long as he tried his best.
Previous interactions with White House reporters have also backfired. In February, Biden mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico at an impromptu news conference he called to rebut a prosecutor's assessment that he had a poor memory.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Biden and Trump tied at 40% each. Other opinion polls have found Trump widening his lead over Biden, and some strategists have warned that Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states like New Hampshire and Minnesota.
In their strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
If he won those states, along with others considered to be reliably Democratic, he would win 270 electoral votes -- the bare minimum needed to secure the presidency. Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020.
The memo said that other competitive states Biden won in 2020 are "not out of reach." Nonpartisan analysts at the Cook Political Report earlier this week changed their ratings to indicate they thought Trump held the advantage in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia -- the states the campaign was likely referring to.
Biden has seen his fundraising advantage over Trump disappear in recent months, and some high-profile Democratic donors, including actor George Clooney, are calling on him to step aside.
Biden has insisted that he is not dropping out, and party rules make it all but impossible for anyone else to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August unless he steps aside.
Democrats would also have to figure out how to hand the nomination to Harris or give others like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a chance to make their case.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Andy Sullivan, additional reporting by Allende Miglietta, Tyler Clifford, Richard Cowan, Jasper Ward, Jarrett Renshaw, Makini Brice, Andrea Shalal, Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Scott Malone, Deepa Babington and Alistair Bell)
