Group of House Democrats pushes to delay Biden nomination

WASHINGTON — A band of House Democrats is seeking to halt the Democratic National Committee from quickly coronating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee before the August convention, warning that it could be seen as quashing the raging debate over whether Biden should stay at the top of the ticket.

More than 20 Democrats have signed onto a draft letter, obtained by NBC News, calling on the DNC to pump the brakes on holding a “virtual roll call” formally nominating Biden in a process that could start as soon as Sunday. The DNC initially had planned to do the virtual roll call ahead of the Chicago convention to address challenges of getting Biden on the Ohio ballot, but state lawmakers have since pushed the ballot deadline until after the convention.

The delay effort is being led by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who’s been critical of Biden but has not formally called on him to step aside, two sources with knowledge of the draft letter said. Reps. Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., who both have called on Biden to step aside, have signed on as well, sources said, as has Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., who privately raised concerns that Biden would be a drag on her re-election chances.

“I certainly don’t think this should be a rushed decision at this point,” Smith said in an interview with NBC News.

The lawmakers slammed the DNC’s virtual roll call plan as an “extraordinary and unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month.”

“Some of us have called on President Biden to step aside, others have urged him to stay in the race, and still others have deep concerns about the status of the President’s campaign but have yet to take a position on what should happen,” the lawmakers wrote in the draft letter.

“All of us, however, agree that stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea.”

In the letter, first reported by The New York Times, the Democratic lawmakers suggested that rushing the nominating process could dampen enthusiasm from Democratic voters.

“Regardless of whether President Biden remains our nominee, Democratic unity and enthusiasm will be critical between now and November 5th,” the letter states. “We respectfully but emphatically request that you cancel any plans for an accelerated ‘virtual roll call’ and further refrain from any extraordinary procedures that could be perceived as curtailing legitimate debate or attempting to force an early resolution of the party nomination.”

For his part, a defiant Biden says that he’s not going anywhere and that he won the nomination fair and square in the primaries.

“Look, 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee in the Democratic Party, OK? I listen to them,” Biden told NBC News anchor Lester Holt in an interview Monday.

Nearly 20 congressional Democrats have called on Biden to drop out of the race over concerns that he’s not up to the task of running a strong campaign against former President Donald Trump. That effort was put on hold following Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump, who was formally nominated Monday by Republicans at their convention in Milwaukee.

But the letter, three days after the shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, shows that some Democrats haven’t given up on trying to derail Biden from formally becoming the party nominee.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, a Biden ally, pushed back on the lawmakers’ suggestion that the nominating roll call had been moved earlier to give Biden a political advantage against his detractors.

“The suggestion that the timeline for the virtual roll call has been accelerated is false. The timeline for the virtual roll call process remains on schedule and unchanged from when the DNC made that decision in May,” Harrison said in a statement. “We look forward to nominating Joe Biden through a virtual roll call and celebrating with fanfare together in Chicago in August alongside the 99 percent of delegates who are supporting the Biden-Harris ticket.”

Biden-Harris principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks also defended the decision to press forward with the virtual roll call, arguing that “Ohio Republicans decided to play games” with ballot access for Biden and that Democrats have an “obligation” to ensure that Biden’s name appears on the ballot. 

Republicans “tried to do a rule change. It is our obligation as a campaign to make sure that President Biden is on the ballot, as well as Donald Trump,” Fulks said Tuesday.