Tim Ryan Says Kamala Harris Should Replace Biden as Democratic Nominee

Tim Ryan, a former Ohio congressman, called on Democrats to replace President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris, who must lead the party in the November election against former President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Ryan, in a Column from Newsweekwrote that he had lost confidence in Biden’s ability to defeat his rival after watching the president struggle in Thursday’s head-to-head debate with Trump.

He noted that Mr. Biden had said he would be a bridge to a new generation of Democratic leaders, an idea he said he liked. “Unfortunately, that bridge collapsed last week,” he wrote.

“It’s been heartbreaking to watch Joe Biden fight,” Ryan wrote of the debate. “And we must find a new path forward.”

In 2020, Mr. Ryan endorsed Biden after his own bid for the party’s nomination failed. In the 2022 midterm elections, he lost his bid for the Senate in Ohio to J.D. Vance, a Republican who is reportedly on Mr. Trump’s shortlist of running mates.

Since Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance last week, the noise has been growing about whether Democrats should replace him as the party’s nominee. He is expected to accept the Democratic nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago in August.

While figures such as Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, the governors of Michigan and California, have drawn attention as potential replacements, Mr. Ryan wrote that Ms. Harris gives Democrats their best chance to retain the presidency.

“Those who say a Harris candidacy is a greater risk than the Joe Biden we saw the other night and will continue to see are not living in reality,” he wrote. “It’s not only utterly ridiculous for the haters to say that, it’s insulting.”