Defiant Joe Biden refuses to leave US presidential race

President Joe Biden is staying put in his re-election campaign, despite the intense pressure from his own party to back down.

Along with influential donors, the Dems are losing hopes of Biden beating Donald Trump, especially since he flunked the first presidential debate ten days ago.

Donald J. Trump. Credits: ABC News

But Biden has shown absolutely no signs of planning to step aside for Kamala Harris. He did an interview with ABC News yesterday, trying to assure voters that he’s fit and good to go.

As evident by multiple polling data, he failed. At the moment, he is said to be getting ready to host the NATO summit in Washington on July 9th.

Tensions with the Democrats

Multiple Democratic lawmakers have written letters blatantly asking Biden to bow out of the race. They waited until after yesterday’s interview to decide whether to send the letters or not. They ended up sending it a few hours after the interview ended.

Source: Polymarket

Reports say that Hakeem Jeffries, who is the Leader of the House Democratic Caucus, has scheduled a virtual meeting with his colleagues for tomorrow. This is so they can discuss how best to move forward with Biden’s candidacy. Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett said:

“Every day Biden delays makes it more difficult for a new person to come on board to defeat Donald Trump.” 

That wasn’t the first time Doggett has asked the president to step down either. Meanwhile, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is also having a physical meeting with his colleagues on Monday to decide what to do about the matter.

Biden’s determination does not matter

At a campaign rally in Madison yesterday, Biden proudly stated that: 

“I am running and gonna win again.” 

Shortly after the speech, he also went on Twitter to reiterate his claims, saying :

“Let me say this as clearly as I can. I’m the sitting President of the United States. I’m the nominee of the Democratic party. I’m staying in the race.”

Majority of polls show that Trump is ahead of Biden, either with a small margin or a big one. Voters are slowly backing away from him, making the Dems worry about how this could affect down-ballot races.

But, Biden did see a glimmer of hope in a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of battleground states where Trump leads him by only 2 percentage points. This is the lowest gap so far.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the top choice to replace him if he were to step aside.

Reporting by Jai Hamid