With all eyes At the Republican convention and its carnival of former reality TV stars, rappers, fourth-rate DJs and GOP officials who pretend they never tolerated political violence, President Joe Biden’s team should enjoy a brief respite from the torrent of terrible, terrible, very bad news that has been pouring in their faces since the president met Donald Trump on the debate stage in late June.
But over the past two weeks, sources say, the Biden campaign has been hitting the phones to check in on pledged delegates whose support, once thought to be sketchy, is now in question. At the same time, Biden’s allies at the Democratic National Convention have been discussing when they might hold a virtual roll-call vote to formally nominate Biden before the Democratic convention in Chicago in late August.
rolling stone CNN spoke to seven delegates from states across the country who have pledged to vote for Biden during the roll call that will formally confirm his party's nomination in November, as well as two superdelegates, who will participate if no winner is chosen in the first round of voting.
Four of the delegates we spoke with expressed strong support and confidence in the president — as would be expected among the loyal soldiers who are typically chosen for such roles — but three delegates pledged to Biden and two Democratic superdelegates expressed doubt that the president is the best option Democrats have to take on Donald Trump in November.
Two delegates spoke with rolling stone They said they received calls from Biden campaign staffers seeking to gauge their level of support for the president, conversations that were alternately described as attempts to canvass their votes or take their temperature. (For comment, the Biden campaign linked the calls to rolling stone With a representative from the Democratic National Committee, who said via email, “It is customary for campaigns to share their committed delegates in the lead-up to the convention, especially since this is our first in-person convention in 8 years and the first with so many delegates in attendance.”)
New York City Councilman Eric Butcher, a committed Biden delegate, says he got a call from a Biden campaign staffer last week. “He asked me what I thought about Biden running, and I was very honest with him: I told him I felt President Biden should step aside and let us pick a different candidate,” Butcher says.
“He asked me if I could commit as a delegate to vote with the Biden campaign in Chicago, and I told him I couldn’t commit at this point,” Butcher added.
Both publicly and privately, Biden allies have been arguing that the virtual vote to formally nominate Biden as the Democratic nominee must happen soon — before Aug. 7 at the latest — for the party’s nominee to appear on the ballot in Ohio.
One of the delegates says rolling stone They received a call from a Biden campaign representative this week about virtual voting — a process that multiple reports indicated the president’s allies were pushing to begin as soon as Monday. “I directly expressed my concerns about early voting,” the representative recalled. “The Democratic Party is moving very quickly to get this online voting done, which they’re trying to get done as quickly as possible.”
The virtual rollout vote was originally intended to address a specific problem: the fact that the Democratic National Convention, where the Democratic nominee was to be formally nominated, was scheduled to take place after Ohio’s deadline for certifying presidential candidates for its November ballot. In June, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation extending Ohio’s deadline to accommodate the convention’s timing. But Democratic National Convention officials — and Biden campaign staffers — have warned that the new legislation won’t go into effect until September, a technicality they say could prevent them from voting.
“I don’t know if the goal of this is to make 100 percent sure that nobody can manipulate us — that’s certainly a story that has some credibility,” said Bart Dam, a superdelegate from Hawaii, speaking of the potential virtual vote. “It also helps, incidentally, silence any talk of replacing Joe Biden as the nominee.”
One of the three delegates at the conference offers a blunt assessment of what they see as an effort to speed up the nomination process: “Pure madness.”
“Do they only care about protecting President Biden and their jobs?” the person asks. “Because there’s so much at stake, they can’t just shut down the conversation because they don’t like what’s being said.”
The effort to hold an early virtual vote comes amid a wave of calls from Democratic lawmakers for Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Speaker of the House Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have reportedly pressed Biden directly, arguing that continuing his candidacy could hurt Democrats’ chances of holding the Senate and retaking the House.
By Wednesday — a day after Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison engaged in a spirited exchange with pundit Nate Silver about the issue on X — the DNC issued a letter clarifying that virtual voting would not begin until Aug. 1.
The news that virtual voting will not take place next week will be disappointing for Milwaukee Republicans who have been publicly and privately demanding that Biden be crowned as soon as possible.
According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter, nearly everyone in Trump’s inner sanctum—polling experts, operatives, Republican lawmakers, and senior campaign advisers—wants Biden to remain the Democratic nominee and, better yet, to secure it early. They cite a wealth of recent polling data, both internal and public, from crucial battleground states to support this position. (Trump himself feels the same way, rolling stone And he said.)
But that doesn’t mean the Trump team is worried about the idea of Kamala Harris running for president in 2024, but many agree that she has more room to grow in the polls over the next four months, while they argue that Biden’s stagnant, and in some cases low, numbers have little chance of improving at this point.
Some delegates concerned about Joe Biden’s viability have reached out to other delegates to voice their concerns, but have struggled to organize. “We’re like mushrooms in the dark,” said one delegate concerned about Biden’s viability. “There’s no mailing list. And when the DNC meetings are held, they’re facing the future without being able to see who else is there, without people asking questions, without people providing feedback.”
Others, like Butcher, say they face a steady stream of skepticism from fellow delegates and elected officials. Butcher says he has spoken to about two dozen such people, adding: “The feeling seems to be almost unanimous that the president should pass the torch to another candidate.”
James Zogby has held leadership positions at the Democratic National Committee for more than three decades, and he was present when the party reshaped this year’s Democratic primary schedule in a way that would have favored Biden had the primary been competitive. The primary was held in South Carolina — the first state Biden won in 2020 — instead of Iowa and New Hampshire, where Biden finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
“I know what’s going on here: This is an attempt to monetize things,” Zogby, a superdelegate who was also a longtime Bernie Sanders supporter, recalled saying at the time.
In the absence of a competitive primary, the June debate was most voters' first chance to see Biden in action, and his performance, many delegates said, took them completely by surprise.
“I think a lot of us have noticed that the president has been aging throughout his first term. But during the debate, it was worse than most of us have ever seen,” Butcher says. “One of the most frustrating moments was when the anchor asked the president about abortion and instead of criticizing Trump, he changed the subject.”
Donald Trump used the question to falsely accuse Democrats of supporting post-birth abortions — Democrats want to “kill the baby,” Trump lied — and instead of exposing this blatant lie, Biden gave a long answer that ultimately changed the subject to immigration.
Another delegate expressed similar sentiments: “The discussion was a defining moment. I’ve been seeing him in person a lot lately, and I had some concerns.” That person added: “But I have to say, I’ve never been concerned about his integrity. I’ve never been concerned about his policies. I’ve never been concerned about the team around him. They’re all top notch.”
Immediately after the debate, Zogby sent a letter to Harrison proposing a month-long mini-primary to choose a new nominee, a process that would include two televised debates, require candidates to secure the support of at least 40 members of the Democratic National Committee, and begin with a letter from the president announcing his withdrawal from the race.
Zogby believes such an exercise would empower delegates. “They will become part of history, like the multiple votes for Kennedy in 1961,” he says. “It was unexpected. But that’s why it’s exciting. It will empower us. We will leave the convention feeling united, but also with a real sense of renewed purpose—in contrast to where we are now, which is always waiting for something else to happen.”
Dame has supported Zogby’s proposal, but he recognizes that time is running out to replace Biden on the ticket. “If it was difficult before, it becomes even more difficult when there is not enough time to put together some kind of fair, equitable, open, small-scale democratic process to select a new nominee,” he says.
At the same time that Biden's allies are reaching out to delegates in an attempt to quell opposition, some delegates are also receiving calls from individuals outside the party apparatus seeking to “educate” them about the rules that will govern the traditional open convention if Biden releases his delegates from the obligation to vote for him.
Delegates for Democracy is one of the campaigns trying to reach out to delegates in the name of providing such information. Chris Dempsey, a former Massachusetts Democratic Party staffer who served in Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration, is part of the effort. He says delegates “are essential to our democracy, and they’re going to be especially essential if the president drops out of the race. Overnight, they go from being a bunch of people who think they’re at a party to being a bunch of people who carry the weight of democracy on their shoulders.”
Liam Kerr, founder of Welcome PAC, a group that has backed moderate Democrats in swing districts, is another figure involved in the campaign. Dempsey declined to identify any other parties involved.
Dempsey says delegates he’s spoken to are frustrated by the lack of information they’re getting from the DNC about how the convention will work if Biden pulls out. “We want to make sure that if Biden pulls out, there’s nothing unnecessary going on,” he says. [Biden] “We realize that it is very important that we choose to withdraw, so that we do not slip into a moment of chaos, where these delegates suddenly feel unprepared for what is coming,” he says.
During the Democratic primary, Biden collected 3,904 pledged delegates; these delegates are obligated to cast their votes for the candidate who wins their state’s primary. The selection process varies from state to state, but their mandate does not: According to Democratic Party rules, delegates are expected to cast votes “that reflect in all good conscience the will of the people and the desires of the people.”[s] “The feelings of those who elected them.” To officially secure the nomination, a candidate needs at least 1,968 pledged delegate votes. If no candidate receives enough votes on the first ballot, the party's 739 delegates will be allowed to participate in a second round of voting.
Butcher says he hasn’t committed significant resources to exploring his options if Biden doesn’t withdraw on his own. “I think the president will step down. I think there’s a lot of momentum behind the effort to change the ticket. There’s a lot of money sitting around.”
“I just hope it happens sooner rather than later,” he adds. “And that it happens in an orderly, thoughtful way that puts us in a position to win in the fall with a new candidate.”
