A handful of President Biden’s 2020 White House rivals are calling for him to step down from the 2024 race.
As Biden advisers scramble to contain the fallout from last week’s debate against former President Trump, Democrats are assessing whether they think the embattled incumbent should stay in the running just a few months from Election Day.
“He should step aside for the good of the country,” Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur who sought the Democratic nomination four years ago, told The Hill on Tuesday.
Yang joins a growing list of former candidates across the party’s ideological spectrum who don’t think Biden is fit to stay in the running for the Oval Office.
“I don’t see a path for President Biden,” former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who served in the Obama-Biden administration, told MSNBC. “Another Democrat would have a better shot” at beating Trump, he said.
The dissent list, which also includes former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan and 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, is so far limited to Democrats who are not currently serving in office.
Within the administration, all eyes are now on Vice President Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who are being talked about as possible replacements if Biden moves aside for a different Democrat to compete against Trump.
Ryan, who hails from a red-leaning swing state, wrote on the social platform X: “We have to rip the band aid off! Too much is at stake,” while pushing Harris as the heir apparent.
“@VP has significantly grown into her job, she will destroy Trump in debate, highlight choice issue, energize our base, bring back young voters and give us generational change. It’s time!” he wrote.
In Congress, however, one of Biden's most serious former challengers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), told The Associated Press (AP) that Biden should stay put.
“I wasn’t confident he could win before the debate,” the Vermont senator told the AP. “What we need on the part of the American people is a maturity right now — and that is to understand that what is important are the issues.”
The calls from Biden’s ex-opponents come after the first House Democrat, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), urged Biden to drop out.
