A third Democrat in the House of Representatives, Seth Moulton, calls on Biden to withdraw

Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts has called on President Biden to end his re-election campaign as Biden and his allies try to prevent the flood of defections following his debate performance a week ago from turning into a tidal wave.

“President Biden has done a tremendous service to our country, but now it is time for him to follow in the footsteps of one of our founding fathers, George Washington, and step aside to allow new leaders to rise up and take on Donald Trump,” Moulton said Thursday. told Boston radio station WBUR.

A spokeswoman for Moulton, Sydney Simon, confirmed Friday that he had called on the president to withdraw from the race.

Mr Moulton said he did not yet know who he thought should replace Mr Biden at the top of the list, or how that person would be chosen — whether Vice President Kamala Harris would actually be the nominee, or whether there would be a competitive process.

Moulton is the third Democrat in the House of Representatives to publicly call for Biden to end his campaign, following Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas on Tuesday and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona on Wednesday.

Others have raised serious concerns but stopped short of directly disavowing Mr. Biden. That was where Mr. Moulton was a day ago, when he said in a statement that he had “serious concerns” about Mr. Biden’s ability to win in November and that the president needed to show he could still run a vigorous and successful campaign.

Mr. Moulton ran a short-lived presidential campaign in 2019, running against Mr. Biden and a group of other candidates in the Democratic primary. A presidential campaign by Mr. Moulton this year is not on the cards, his spokeswoman said.