Concerns among Democrats about President Biden’s fitness to run for re-election erupted into open panic on Tuesday, as the top sitting member of Congress called on Biden to withdraw and a host of other leading officials who have supported the president voiced their concerns.
One Democratic Senator openly asked for assurances from the White House about Mr. Biden’s “condition” — “that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told a local television station, where he said he was “shocked” by the president’s debate performances.
Another, Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, criticized the Biden campaign for “a dismissive attitude towards people who raise questions for discussion,” in an interview with Semafor.
And later Tuesday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, a veteran progressive lawmaker, issued a statement saying that Biden’s performance at the debate, which he hoped would give the president momentum to offset his weakness against former President Donald J. Trump, had instead disqualified him from running again.
“I had hoped that the debate would provide momentum to change that. It didn’t,” Mr. Doggett said. “Instead of reassuring voters, the president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
The vast majority of Democrats, including party leaders, remain openly supportive of Mr. Biden, and the few critics who have dared to voice concerns thus far are not major players in the party with large followings. Yet on Tuesday, after days of privately brooding over Mr. Biden’s clumsy, halting debate performance late last week, more and more Democrats seemed ready to air their frustrations.
It was a remarkable turning point that came just a day after the president addressed the nation on prime time in an attempt to assuage concerns about his ability to speak in public.
Worried about pressure from within Biden’s own firmament, White House officials discussed sending Biden to swing states including Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania on Sunday to do what allies have urged: put him in public view for extended periods of time. And they discussed having Biden meet on Wednesday with Democratic governors, many of whom have not had direct contact with the president since the debate, angering some who have yet to hear from him.
Much of the anxiety among lawmakers, strategists and aides is fueled by a dual fear: not only that Biden’s missteps will cost him the White House, but also that they could make it impossible for Democrats to win the crucial races that will determine control of the House and Senate, losing a crucial check on the power of a potential Trump presidency.
“He needs to understand clearly,” Rep. Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, said Tuesday on CNN, “that his decision not only affects who’s going to serve in the White House for the next four years, but it affects who’s going to serve in the Senate, it affects who’s going to serve in the House, and it’s going to affect decades to come.”
Many Democratic offices on Capitol Hill have reported being bombarded with calls from their constituents urging lawmakers to ask Biden to resign. Doggett said in an interview that the calls and messages he received from constituents and supporters were “10 to 1” in favor of Biden’s resignation. Another said the messages were evenly split between constituents calling for Biden to withdraw and those who believed he was fit to serve.
And it is clear that Republicans plan to use questions about Biden’s mental acuity and his fitness for office as a millstone around the necks of vulnerable Democrats.
The day after the debate, Republican trackers — operatives who film candidates and pepper them with politically treacherous questions — followed frontline Democrats home to their districts and asked them the same question: “Is Joe Biden fit to be president?”
“Joe Biden is President,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, replied irritated. “His you fit to be president?”
But privately, many Democrats are deeply concerned. Democrats in congressional races across the country have long understood that they must outperform Biden to win their seats. In that sense, several party officials working on congressional races said Biden’s performance would have little bearing on their strategy.
Rep. Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, who represents a district Trump won in 2020, said Tuesday in an opinion piece that he had long believed the former president would win in November — “and I’m fine with that.”
“Maine’s representatives will have to work with him when it benefits Maine people, hold him accountable when it doesn’t, and work independently no matter what,” Mr. Golden wrote.
In a pair of statements from the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms, spokespeople stressed that the congressional races were “candidate-versus-candidate battles,” as David Bergstein, the Senate campaign’s communications director, put it.
But Biden’s debate performance, which prompted a new wave of questions about his age and mental state, has cast a dark shadow over Democrats further down the ballot.
“It’s remarkable that our major Senate candidates have run so far ahead of the president in places like Nevada and all over the country,” Mr. Doggett said in an interview. “But if we can’t run a more vigorous and effective campaign, we could end up with a Republican House and Senate. And there’s concern that even if they get one of those houses, we’re not going to have any check on Trump at all.”
Mr. Doggett said he believed Democrats were well positioned to win control of the House. “But if you look at it state by state, the margin — under the best of circumstances — is going to be modest. And that’s why we need all the help we can get from the top.”
For now, leading Democrats are expressing strong support for Mr. Biden. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said during an appearance in Syracuse on Tuesday that he believed “yes” the president was fit to serve.
“I stand with Joe Biden,” he said.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and former speaker, said Tuesday it was “legitimate” to ask whether Biden’s bad night at the debate was a one-time blunder or “a condition” — though she added that Trump should answer the same question about the lies he told.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say whether this is an episode or a condition,” Ms. Pelosi said in her first extended speech since Mr. Biden’s halting and disjointed performance during the debate.
“When people ask that question, it’s legitimate — from both candidates,” she added. “What we saw on the other side was lying.”
But for the first time, at least one prominent Democrat who continues to back Biden raised questions about his withdrawal. Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, whose support helped Biden earn the Democratic nomination in 2020, said he would support Vice President Kamala Harris if the president were to leave office.
“I will support her if he were to step aside,” Clyburn said Tuesday on MSNBC, though he added, “I want this ticket to remain Biden-Harris.”
In informal conversations, insiders said, leading Democrats advised politically vulnerable candidates to respond in the way they felt was best for their own race, whether by defending Biden or distancing themselves from him.
That has left many frontline Democrats questioning Biden’s fitness as they try to signal their independence to voters in their districts. One Democratic challenger, Adam Frisch in Colorado, who nearly unseated Rep. Lauren Boebert in 2022, has called on Biden to resign.
“Panic is not a useful emotion, but neither is denial,” said John Avlon, a Democrat running against a Republican incumbent on Long Island. “President Biden had a bad debate, but he has a good record. This is a legitimate debate for Democrats to have, and it’s a sign of a healthy political party.”
It has put Democrats in a particularly difficult position in key states like Wisconsin and Arizona, where Biden will campaign aggressively.
“I focus on my race; I’m not an expert,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, told reporters last week when asked whether Biden should consider resigning.
Representative Matt Cartwright, the political veteran who represents Mr. Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa., is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House seeking re-election this year. He told reporters at the Capitol the day after the debate that it would be a “big step” for Mr. Biden to step aside.
But Mr. Cartwright must navigate the difficult political waters in his district, where an unpopular incumbent president could drag him down. He declined to be interviewed but insisted in a statement that he was his own man.
“The president had a rough night, but I’m running in a different race in my community,” Mr. Cartwright said. “Northeast Pennsylvania knows me. They know I provide good-paying jobs, lower prescription drug prices and stand up for our rights.”
His opponent, Rob Bresnahan, was eager to tie him to what he called a weakened president.
“He’s long past his prime, and it’s clear,” Mr. Bresnahan said of Mr. Biden in an interview. “Everybody saw that this is our leader. This is our president. And Congressman Cartwright votes with this man almost 100 percent of the time. It’s the blind leading the blind.”
Some Democrats believe that if Biden stays in the race and continues to trail Trump in the polls or falls further behind, the party and its biggest donors will simply focus their money and energy on keeping the Senate and winning back the House of Representatives rather than running for president.
That’s how Republicans handled the 1996 election, when their presidential candidate, Bob Dole, was trailing badly. Their efforts helped the GOP retain control of Congress, thwarting Bill Clinton’s second term, just as Democrats hoped to do during a second Trump administration.
“Democrats may be saying, ‘We’ve got to get our act together or we’re going to lose everything,’” said Steve Jarding, a veteran Democratic political strategist and former professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. “And the American public seems to like divided government.”
Lucas Broadwater, Maggie Haberman, Maya C. Miller And Aishvarya Kavi contributed to the reporting.
