A growing number of Democratic donors and big-name politicians nationwide are saying, publicly or privately, that Joe Biden should abandon his quest for a second term.
But a Forward Kentucky survey of party loyalists in western Kentucky, including a Democratic National Convention delegate, suggests a lack of consensus among the faithful on what the president should do.
Respondents replied via email or text messages. Here is what they said:
- He needs to step down.
- I’m ridin’ with Biden! It would be a fool’s errand to throw the Democratic party into complete chaos this close to the election. That, in itself, would hand Trump a victory in November.
- I want Biden to stay, but, on a scale of one to 10, it’s a 5. The other 5 parts of me say what’s wrong with a Harris/Shapiro ticket? Or Harris/Beshear? Kamala would eat Trump’s lunch in the next debate. In fact, Trump would be a no show. He knows he has no upside in debate #2. Why go? KH brings the black women and young people voters who propelled BO to victory in 2008 and 2012.
- I’ve decided about 12 different ways on this one. Bottom line is we have to beat Trump. At this point I don’t think it is clear that Biden can do that. I also am not sure Kamala won’t create a backlash if she takes over,
- After what I saw a week ago last Thursday, I am very concerned. He sounded very anemic. He just did not sound well. He did not come across well. Even if he got reelected, I just don’t think he would survive a second term. He needs to step aside and I would probably support Vice President Harris. If he is our nominee in the fall, we’re done. We’re going to lose the White House. We’re going to lose the Senate. This is going to hurt us in state houses. It will hurt the Democratic Party for a long time. We don’t need the party of fascism in the White House or Congress or any state house. Full stop.
- For the life of me I cannot understand how people can fixate on a 90-minute debate. After 40 years of Biden in several offices and doing “good work” for OUR COUNTRY, we are going to focus our attention on a screwed-up performance. Why are we not calling for DT to get out of the race? Let’s look at his everyday record – Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts marks the end of his historic hush money trial, sexual abuse of at least 22 brave women who are willing to tell their story and the continuation of pushing women down-by taking away their healthcare options. And now we have the Supreme court taking sides – something that I can’t believe in my lifetime. Are we losing sight of the real problem – DTrump, in my opinion, is this country’s most pressing issue. We should be proud of what Biden has done for us, our country and remind everyone that DT is only out there for himself and is the real issue to defeat.
- I believe he should stay and if he feels he is okay we should get behind him 100 percent. I truly believe that if the vice president was someone other than a woman, and a Black woman at that, we wouldn’t be going through this. This country can’t afford to go through 4 more years of Donald Trump.
- I guess I am in the “too early to decide.” I had long wished Biden would have kept to his plan to serve as a bridge to a new generation president, but he didn’t. Given the Trump alternative, I will support whoever the Democrat is. I worry that Democrats will stumble over a Biden substitute.
- I am torn, but he should probably go because the money interests are pulling out. If House and Senate leaders ask him to step down, he should. It seems that the media is more interested in Biden’s bad debate performance than they are about Trump’s effective lying strategy.
- Before I would ask Biden to step aside, I would want to see the process of getting Harris or some other replacement candidate on the ballot in all the states. I would also like to see him do a town hall with unscripted questions, But what is most important is beating Trump.
- I believe that Biden should probably stay in the race, primarily because I don’t know how with only 4 months to go before the election that we can get a new candidate on the ballot in every state. I also question how we get anyone to unite behind one candidate at this point, and I am concerned that if we had anyone but Kamala, we would lose the votes of people of color, and some women. Running a white male is not going to do it. We need to focus messaging around the accomplishments of the Biden administration, which has functioned very well. Do we ignore those positives because of one bad debate? Last month, Biden put forth a proposal on resolving the Israel/Gaza conflict, and it was almost unanimously embraced by the other countries. He may not be able to debate, but he has a great understanding of the issues and a team to help implement policy. Trump is only going to select toadies that say yes to everything he wants, so we can not trust that anyone is going to stand up to him to stop his mayhem. We need our citizens to step up as heroes for our country, as England and France have done. They lived through Hitler and being attacked and occupied, and they pulled together to guarantee that the far right nationalists did not take power in their elections this week. So unless Biden does step down, and does releases his delegates I will be voting for Biden at our Convention.
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