Democratic leaders in the House and Senate on Wednesday refrained from calling on their members to rally behind President Biden, instead listening to a flood of complaints from both the party’s centrist wing and progressives.
According to several people involved in the conversations who asked not to be identified, the private message from congressional leaders was that members should feel free to take a position on Biden’s candidacy that was best for their districts.
For some, that meant joining the ranks of elected Democrats who criticized the president’s performance and called on him to retire or suggested he seriously consider doing so.
Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, is the second Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to withdraw from the race, following Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas, who made his call on Tuesday.
“If he is the nominee, I will support him, but I think this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,” Mr. Grijalva said in an interview. Referring to the president, Mr. Grijalva added: “What he has to do is take responsibility to keep that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”
Other Democrats were not willing to go that far, but indicated they were deeply concerned about Biden’s re-election chances.
“I believe the President’s presentation of the debate was a disaster,” Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat in a competitive district, said in a statement Tuesday. “Americans want a leader who is committed to telling the truth, but also looking to be a fighter.”
“President Biden needs to show that he is fit to lead the free world and show his fighting spirit,” Mr. Davis added. “If he wants to stay, he needs to step up.”
Several Democrats from politically competitive areas were waiting for poll results in their districts to decide whether to join calls for Biden to step aside. Members of Biden’s team — including Steve Ricchetti and Shuwanza Goff — were on the phone with lawmakers, trying to quell the growing discontent.
But when congressional leaders called out Democrats from battleground states, they heard dire warnings, people familiar with the calls said. Some suggested Biden could not defeat Trump. Others said Biden would drag Democrats down the House. Still others urged Democrats to rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
As Democrats in swing districts awaited their own poll results, The New York Times and Siena College released a study showing that Trump’s lead in the race had widened after Biden’s bumbling debate performance. Trump now leads Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationwide, a three-point shift in Republican favor from just a week earlier, before the debate.
At the same time, Biden’s campaign sent a memo to Democrats on Capitol Hill showing that their analysis of the polls indicated there was little to no change in the race after the debate.
“Public polls and our own internal top lines from last night show a tight race: we estimate we are only down 1 point. All of this is well within the margin of error and shows a tight race,” Biden’s Hillary Beard wrote in an email to House Democrats.
Ms. Beard also praised a surge in fundraising after the debate, saying the campaign raised more than $33 million. “The hour after the debate was the single best grassroots fundraising hour of the entire campaign,” she wrote.
Still, Democrats were uneasy. Their dilemma was illustrated by the actions of Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat who long ago left the party to declare himself an independent. Mr. Manchin was so disillusioned with Mr. Biden’s debate performances last week — and angry that his calls to top Democrats expressing his dismay went unanswered — that he asked his staff to book him on several Sunday talk shows to rail against the state of Mr. Biden’s campaign.
Ultimately, Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a staunch Biden ally, and other Democrats intervened with Manchin, who canceled the planned TV appearances. The Washington Post previously reported on Mr. Manchin’s changed plans.
Other lawmakers open to replacing Biden have also received calls from the campaign asking for more time to get the ship back on course.
Sen. Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, said he was leaving the door open to supporting a Democrat other than Biden.
“Let’s face it, what we saw, we can’t unsee,” Welch said on MSNBC of Biden’s faltering performance during last week’s debate.
“Age is the issue now,” Mr Welch added. “That was the concern people had going into the debate. The debate was an opportunity to try to put that to rest, and frankly, it reinforced the concern about age.”
Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, also told the news outlet that Mr. Biden needed to quickly show the American people that he had the energy to get the job done. She criticized Mr. Biden for not calling top Democrats in Congress the day after the debate.
“He doesn’t have much time,” Ms Dingell said, adding: “He can’t be wrapped in a bubble.”
Tim Balk contributed to the reporting.
