Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the prominent House Democrat running for Senate in California, publicly called on President Joe Biden to suspend his reelection campaign and allow another Democrat to top their party’s ticket Wednesday.
“President Biden has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a Vice President, and now as President has made our country better. But our nation is at a crossroads,” argued Schiff in a statement given to the Los Angeles Times. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
He went on to acknowledge that while it’s ultimately Biden’s “choice,” Schiff believes that Biden should “pass the torch.”
Schiff said he “will do everything” he can to help whoever ends up as the Democratic nominee while identifying “defeating Donald Trump” as the “one singular goal” of this election cycle.
The congressman’s call for Biden to step aside on Wednesday comes just hours after two devastating polls cast doubt on Biden’s ability to win reelection.
One, an AP/NORC survey, found that 70% of Americans and even 65% of Democrats want Biden to drop out an allow someone else to face off against Trump. Just 29% of the electorate, meanwhile feels either extremely or somewhat confident that Biden had the mental capacity needed to be an effective president.
The second, a BlueLabs Analytics poll, found that “alternative Democratic candidates run ahead of President Biden by an average of three points across the battleground states” of Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.”
“Voters are looking for a fresh face,” read a memo accompanying the topline results of the latter poll. “Those more closely tied to the current administration perform relatively worse than other tested candidates.”
This is a breaking story and has been updated.
