They’re Meant to Be Automatic. Some Biden Delegates Aren’t Sure Anymore
With all eyes on the Republican convention and its carnival of former reality TV stars, D-list rappers and DJs, and GOP officials pretending they’ve never condoned political violence, President Joe Biden’s team should be enjoying a brief respite from the firehose of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news that has been blasting them in the face since the president met Donald Trump on debate stage in late June.
But over the past two weeks, sources say, Biden’s campaign has been working the phones to check in with pledged delegates whose support, previously thought to be perfunctory, is now in question. At the same time, Biden’s allies at the DNC have been discussing how soon they might hold a virtual roll call vote to officially nominate Biden ahead of the Democratic convention in Chicago in late August.
Rolling Stone spoke with seven delegates, representing states around the country, who are pledged to vote for Biden during the roll call that will officially confirm him as the party’s nominee this November, as well as two superdelegates, who would participate if no winner is selected in the first round of voting.
Four of the delegates we spoke with expressed strong support and confidence in the president — as would be expected among the loyal foot soldiers typically selected for such roles — but three pledged Biden delegates and two DNC superdelegates voiced doubts that the president is the best option that Democrats have to take on Donald Trump this November.
Two delegates who spoke with Rolling Stone said they had fielded calls from the Biden campaign staffers seeking to gauge their level of support for the president, conversations alternately described as attempts to whip their votes or take their temperature. (Reached for comment, the Biden campaign connected Rolling Stone with a representative from the DNC, who said via email, “It’s pretty standard for campaigns to engage their pledged delegates in the lead up to the convention, especially with this being our first in-person convention in 8 years and the first convention that many delegates will attend.”)
New York City Council member Erik Bottcher, a pledged Biden delegate, says he took a call from a staffer with the Biden campaign last week. “He asked me for my thoughts on Biden’s candidacy, and I was very honest with him: I told him that I felt that President Biden should step aside and allow us to select a different candidate,” Bottcher says.
“He asked me if I could commit as a delegate to voting with the Biden campaign in Chicago, and I told him that I couldn’t make that commitment at this point,” Bottcher adds.
Publicly and privately, Biden allies have been arguing that a virtual roll call vote to officially nominate Biden as the Democratic candidate needs to take place soon — before August 7 at the latest — in order for the party’s nominee to appear on the Ohio ballot.
One delegate tells Rolling Stone they received a call from an envoy with the Biden campaign this week on the topic of the virtual roll call vote — a process, multiple reports indicated, the president’s allies were pushing to begin as soon as Monday. “I expressed very directly my concern about the early vote,” the delegate recalls. “The DNC is moving very, very quickly to have this online vote, which they’re trying to get wrapped up as quickly as possible.”
The virtual roll call vote was originally floated to address a specific problem: the fact that the Democratic National Convention, where the Democratic candidate was set to be officially nominated, was scheduled to take place after Ohio’s deadline to certify presidential candidates for its November ballot. In June, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation extending Ohio’s deadline to accommodate the convention’s timing. But DNC officials — and Biden campaign staff — have cautioned that the new legislation doesn’t take effect until September, a technicality they say could keep them from the ballot.
Speaking about the potential virtual roll call vote, Bart Dame, a superdelegate from Hawaii, says, “I don’t know if it’s just to make it 100 percent certain that no one can mess with us — that certainly is a story that has some credibility. It also, coincidentally, helps shut down any talk about replacing Joe Biden as the nominee.”
A third pledged convention delegate offers a blunt assessment of what they see as an effort to fast-track the nomination process: “Sheer madness.”
“Do they only care about protecting President Biden and their own jobs?” that person asks. “Because there’s just so much more at stake, and they can’t just shut down the conversation because they don’t like what’s being said.”
The effort to hold an early virtual vote comes amid a flurry of calls from Democratic lawmakers for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have all reportedly leaned on Biden directly, arguing that his continued candidacy may hurt Democrats’ chances at retaining the Senate and retaking the House of Representatives.
By Wednesday — one day after DNC chair Jaime Harrison engaged in a spirited exchange with pundit Nate Silver over the issue on X — the DNC put out a letter clarifying virtual voting would not begin before August 1.
The news that a virtual vote will not take place next week will be disappointing to Republicans in Milwaukee who are clamoring, publicly and privately, for a Biden coronation ASAP.
According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter, practically everyone in Trump’s inner sanctum — pollsters, operatives, Republican lawmakers, top campaign advisers — wants Biden to remain as the Democratic nominee, and better, to be locked in early. They cited reams of recent polling data, internal and public, from critical battleground states to support that position. (Trump himself feels the same way, Rolling Stone is told.)
That’s not to say Team Trump is having heartburn over the idea of a Kamala Harris 2024 presidential nomination, but many of them agree that she has more room to grow in the polls in the next four months, whereas they argue Biden’s stagnant, and in some cases sinking, numbers have little chance of improving at this point.
Some delegates anxious about locking Joe Biden in as a candidate have sought to connect with other delegates to air their concerns, but they’ve encountered difficulties organizing. “We’re kind of like mushrooms in the dark,” one said of delegates similarly concerned about Biden’s viability. “There’s no listserv. When there are DNC meetings of the delegates, they’re forward facing with no ability to see who else is on it, or for people to ask questions, or have comments.”
Others, like Bottcher, say they’re on the receiving end of a constant stream of doubts from other delegates and elected officials. Bottcher says he’s spoken with roughly two dozen such people, adding, “The feeling seems to be nearly unanimous that the president should pass the torch to a different candidate.”
James Zogby has occupied leadership roles at the Democratic National Committee for more than three decades, and he was present as the party re-worked this year’s Democratic primary schedule in a way that would have favored Biden had the primary been competitive. The primary kicked off in South Carolina — the first state Biden won in 2020 — rather than in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Biden placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
Zogby, a superdelegate who has also been a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders, recalls saying at the time: “I know what’s going on here: This is an effort to grease the skids.”
In the absence of a competitive primary, the June debate became the first opportunity for most voters to see Biden in action, and his performance — several delegates said — completely blindsided them.
“I think a lot of us observed that the president was aging throughout the course of his first term. But during the debate, it was worse than most of us had seen before,” Bottcher says. “One of the most frustrating moments was when the moderator asked the president about abortion and instead of taking Trump to task, he changed the subject.”
Donald Trump seized on the question to erroneously accuse Democrats of supporting post-birth abortions — Democrats want to “kill the baby,” Trump lied — and instead of calling out that bald-faced lie, Biden gave an rambling answer that ultimately changed the subject to immigration.
Another delegate expressed similar sentiment: “The debate was a defining moment. I’ve seen him in person a lot recently, and had some concerns.” That person adds, “But I must say, I’m never concerned about his integrity. I’m never concerned about his policies. I’m never concerned about the team around him. Those are all A+.”
Immediately after the debate, Zogby sent a letter to Harrison proposing a one month “mini” primary to select a new nominee, a process that would involve two televised debates, require candidates to secure the support of at least 40 DNC members, and kick off with a speech from the president announcing he was withdrawing from the race.
He thinks such an exercise would be empowering for delegates. “They would be part of history, something like the multiple floor votes for Kennedy in 1961,” Zogby says. “‘Oh, so unpredictable.’ Yeah, but that’s why it would be exciting, and it would be empowering, and we leave the convention with a sense of unity, but also a sense of real, invigorated purpose — as opposed to where we are right now, which is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Dame supported Zogby’s proposal, but he recognizes that time is running low to replace Biden on the ticket. “If it had been difficult before, it becomes even more difficult when there’s not enough time to pull together some kind of fair, equitable, open, and small-d democratic process for picking a new nominee,” he says.
At the same time that Biden allies are reaching out to delegates in an effort to stanch dissent, some delegates are also receiving outreach from individuals outside the party apparatus seeking to “educate” them on the rules that would govern a traditional open convention if Biden releases his delegates from an obligation to vote for him.
“Delegates Are Democracy” is one campaign reaching out to delegates in the name of providing such information. Chris Dempsey, a former staffer at the Democratic Party of Massachusetts who served in Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration, is involved with the effort. Delegates, he says, “are essential to our democracy, and they will be especially essential if the president were to withdraw from the race. They’ll go overnight from being a group of people that thought they were attending a party, to having the weight of democracy on their shoulders.”
Liam Kerr, founder of Welcome PAC, a group that has supported moderate Democrats in swing districts, is another figure engaged in the campaign. Dempsey declined to identify any other parties involved.
Dempsey says the delegates he has spoken to are frustrated by the lack of information they are getting from the DNC about how the convention would work if Biden withdraws. “We want to make sure that if [Biden] does choose to withdraw, that we’re not plunged into a moment of chaos, where all of a sudden these delegates feel underprepared for what’s ahead,” he says.
During the Democratic primary, Biden amassed 3,904 pledged delegates; such delegates are obligated to cast a vote for the candidate who won their state’s primary election. The selection process varies state-by-state but their mandate doesn’t: According to Democratic party rules, delegates are expected to cast a vote that “in all good conscience reflect[s] the sentiments of those who elected them.” In order to officially clinch the nomination, a candidate needs at least 1,968 pledged delegates’ votes. If no candidate earns enough votes on the first vote, the party’s 739 superdelegates will be allowed to participate in a second round of voting.
Bottcher says he has not devoted significant resources to exploring his options if Biden does not withdraw of his own accord. “I believe that the president will step aside. I think there’s too much momentum behind the effort to change the ticket. And there’s too much money being held up.”
He adds, “I’m just hoping that it happens sooner rather than later. And that it happens in an orderly choreographed way that positions us for victory in the fall with a new candidate.”