Should President Joe Biden drop his re-election bid? Here’s where Minnesota Democrats stand

A growing roster of prominent Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden to drop his re-election bid as fallout continues to spiral from his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. The Republican officially accepted his party’s nomination on Thursday night in Milwaukee.

So far, three U.S. Senate Democrats and more than 20 in the House, including two members of the Minnesota delegation, have called on the president to withdraw from the race since the debate. Another Minnesota Democrat, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, had previously mounted a failed challenge to Biden in a push to elevate concerns about the president’s age.

The Democratic National Convention, where the party officially names its nominee, is still a month away. It’s unclear what it would mean for the event if Biden drops out, or who stands the best chance to become the Democrats’ standard-bearer.

“We have always been like herding cats in the Democratic Party and that’s because there is no unified one-size-fits-all,” Gov. Tim Walz said Thursday.

Here’s where Minnesota’s elected Democrats stand on whether Biden should drop out of the race:

The governor has been one of Biden’s staunchest supporters throughout the campaign and defended the president during television interviews in the wake of the debate. He told the PBS NewsHour in late June that he was “confident in the president’s ability” and that a pivot to another nominee was “a discussion I’m not really having now.”

Like other prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Walz has begun saying the president himself must decide who the party standard-bearer should be going forward.

“The decision of who that candidate will be really falls on President Biden at this point in time,” Walz said Thursday.

The three-term congresswoman was the first Democrat in the Minnesota delegation to explicitly call on Biden to drop out of the race following the June 27 debate.

“Given what I saw and heard from the president during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the president himself following that debate, I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump,” Craig said in a statement.

Last week, Omar said Biden has been “the best president of my lifetime, and we have his back.” The three-term congresswoman has since kept up her support of the president and criticized Democrats who have anonymously called for the president to withdraw.

“It’s a lack of leadership and it’s making all Democrats look bad,” she recently wrote on X. “Whatever this mess leads to will not undo the damage that has already been inflicted. May God help us all.”

Phillips was the only elected Democrat in the country to mount a serious bid to unseat Biden atop the party’s ticket during the primaries, though he mustered very little support. He hasn’t yet weighed in on whether Biden should withdraw and his team did not respond to a request for comment.

Phillips made Biden’s age a factor during his campaign for the Democratic nomination and faced the ire of his colleagues on the hill for doing so.

“If this is vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling,” Phillips said in early July as calls for Biden to step down began growing louder.

He later wished Biden a speedy recovery from his COVID infection and referenced a plotline of the musical “Hamilton.”

McCollum joined Craig on Friday in calling for Biden to step down. She also suggested the Democratic Party nominate Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the ticket and endorsed Walz as vice president.

“Winning in November and defeating Trump’s dangerous, hate-filled agenda must be Democrats’ sole focus,” McCollum said in a statement. “To give Democrats a strong, viable path to winning the White House, I am calling upon President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice-President Harris to step forward to become the Democratic nominee for President.”

Smith has voiced skepticism over Biden’s campaign but stopped short of calling on the president to withdraw.

“I have a lot of concerns and I am not the only one,” she told reporters earlier this month. Smith said in a statement that Biden will have to decide for himself whether to stay in the race and that for now she’s focusing on how best to defeat Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.

“Right now, our party is having a big, robust conversation about how best to do that, and I think that’s healthy,” Smith said. “At the end of the day, President Biden has an important decision to make, and I know he will make a decision that is in the best interest of our country. In the meantime, I’m focused on listening to Minnesotans and doing my job as their senator.”

Like Smith, Klobuchar said the days after the debate would be critical and that “the president must demonstrate to the American people that he can win.” She echoed Smith and Walz in saying Biden must ultimately decide whether to step down.

“This is one of the most important elections in our lifetimes, and I’m focused on charting the best way forward which includes the strongest campaign possible on the national level,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “The president must make a decision that is best for this country and our democracy.”

Star Tribune staff writers Sydney Kashawagi and Chris Vondracek contributed to this story.