Pressure mounts on Biden as high-profile Democrat Chuck Schumer reportedly tells him to drop re-election bid

The pressure on Joe Biden to step aside is mounting after US Congress’ highest-ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer, reportedly added his voice to the growing chorus urging him to reconsider his re-election bid.

He reportedly told the President in a one-on-one meeting on the weekend that he should withdraw in favour of another candidate.

A spokesman for the New York Senator did not deny the reports and said that during the meeting at Mr Biden’s home in Delaware he “conveyed the views of his caucus”.

It comes after another high-profile Democrat, California Representative Adam Schiff, also called on Mr Biden to drop his re-election bid.

The party is pushing ahead with plans to hold a virtual vote to formally make Biden its nominee in the first week of August before the Democratic convention opens in person two weeks later.

Schumer and Schiff take the number of congressional Democrats urging Biden to withdraw from the presidential race to more than 20.

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff, a California Democrat who is running for the Senate, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times newspaper as saying.

Democratic concern about the 81-year-old incumbent’s ability to beat Republican challenger Trump, or to serve another four years in office, surged after Biden’s halting June 27 debate performance.

Trump is currently in Milwaukee where his fellow Republicans are formally nominating him as candidate, days after he narrowly escaped an assassin’s bullet at a Pennsylvania campaign stop.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrat voters say Biden should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Wednesday, undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some”big names” are turning on him.

“While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said in a statement.

“And in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”

Schiff’s announcement comes after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries encouraged the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to delay for a week plans to hold a virtual vote to renominate Biden, which could have taken place as soon as Sunday, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The DNC’s rules committee will meet on Friday to discuss the virtual vote plans and will finalise them next week, according to a letter sent to members obtained on Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Mr Biden has been defiant in the face of the calls to quit the race, telling one interviewer that only the “Lord Almighty” could persuade him to go.

With AP