Democrats plan a roll call vote for Biden this month. But some want to wait

A group of Democratic lawmakers has drafted a letter asking the Democratic National Committee to halt plans to hold a virtual roll call vote before the party’s convention, calling it a “terrible idea” that would sap party morale.

The letter was drafted on behalf of a group of members – some of whom want President Biden to step aside from the ticket, some who want him to stay on, and others who have not taken a position yet. NPR obtained copies of the letter from two different Democratic sources. The letter is currently circulating among lawmakers, and has not yet been sent to the DNC.

“Members across the political spectrum of the caucus are involved in this effort,” one Democrat involved with the discussions told NPR.

The letter is a long-shot bid by Democrats who are fearful of losses up and down the ticket to sway Biden and his closest allies that the political situation is dire and can only be addressed by him.

California Democratic Rep Jared Huffman is among those discussing the draft. His office told NPR, “Rep. Huffman and other members are very concerned with this extraordinary attempt to speed up the nomination and do not think brute force is the way to achieve unity and enthusiasm.”

It’s the latest sign that party discontent with Biden is still bubbling under the surface. Biden has said repeatedly that he's staying in the race. Public calls for Biden to step back had gone silent since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump over the weekend, after which Biden called for unity during an unsettled time in the country.

Here’s why the early vote was scheduled

Well before President Biden froze during the June 27 debate, a performance that raised alarms in his party about his ability to run for a second term, the DNC had announced a plan for a virtual roll call vote sometime before the convention.

The aim was to get around a deadline in an Ohio law to get the nominee on the November ballot – but on May 31, that state passed legislation that effectively negated the need for the DNC workaround.

Two DNC committees are slated to meet July 19 and July 21 to finalize this plan and set a date for the virtual vote. That would likely mean that Biden would officially be the nominee well before delegates show up at the convention hall in Chicago in August.

One senior Democratic strategist who previously worked for several senior House Democrats said the campaign and DNC’s push for the early roll call is “rubbing people the wrong way.” The strategist was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. 

In the draft letter, the lawmakers say that the party’s formal nomination of its candidates should happen at the convention, as it always does. The convention this year is set to open on Aug. 19.

“There is no legal justification for this extraordinary and unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month,” they said in the letter.

The vote would “be rightly perceived as a purely political maneuver” and would undermine party unity and enthusiasm, they said.

Party officials say they don’t trust Ohio Republicans

Pressed on why the party is moving forward with virtual roll call plans even after the Ohio legislature passed a fix, Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign, said Democrats aren’t willing to take a risk on Ohio Republicans finding a way to keep Biden off the ballot.

“We moved forward, we instituted this before they had a fix. And we're going to continue on that path because we're not going to leave it up to them to change the rules again,” said Fulks.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement that the decision was made in May, and said the vote was not being accelerated for political reasons.

But there’s still no organized push to oust Biden

Multiple Democratic sources tell NPR there are serious conversations, but no organized push, at the moment to press Biden to step aside. “There’s no way to force his hand here.” The other complication is that those involved in arguing the president should withdraw have not reached consensus about who should replace him. That lack of agreement is stalling any effective effort to recast the top of the ticket, multiple Democrats said.

“You can’t replace somebody with nobody,” the Democratic strategist said.

Biden has told members that anyone who wanted to could challenge him at the convention – a challenge he laid out publicly on July 8 inan interview on MNSBC’s Morning Joe. “If any of these guys don't think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president. Challenge me at the convention,” Biden said in that interview.

But if he is the nominee already, that would be hard to do, lawmakers noted in their draft letter.

Democrats both publicly and privately have warned that Biden’s debate performance is putting the prospects for the party to keep the Senate and flip control of the House out of reach. Democrats from red leaning districts have already publicly distanced themselves from the president. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., suggested Biden may not be up to the job to complete his term, saying in a statement last week, “I doubt the president’s judgment about his own health, his fitness to do the job, and whether he is the one making important decisions about our country, rather than unelected advisers.”

The senior Democratic strategist, who is advising several candidates recommended they work to separate themselves from the president, and not count on national party resources, with donors freezing money that is typically used for get out the vote efforts. In a message after the attempted assassination attempt against Trump, this Democrat warned the enthusiasm gap between the GOP and the Democratic base means far more congressional races will be in play this November. “Every single pollster needs to redo their models and put GOP base turnout higher than 2016 and move ours lower. That’s going to dramatically expand the map, stretch thin our resources.”