Biden's family urges him to 'keep fighting' as donors look for alternatives
A top Biden campaign official held a tense call with donors Sunday, laying out what would happen to the campaign infrastructure should Biden step aside — stressing he had no plans to do so.
WASHINGTON — As top Democrats offered a public show of support for President Joe Biden throughout the weekend, his advisers worked privately Sunday to push back against suggestions that he step aside, with his campaign manager describing the mechanics of replacing him on the ticket as messy and impractical.
During a tense call with a group of about 40 of Biden’s top financial backers, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez laid out what could and could not be done with the campaign’s infrastructure if Biden were to step aside while emphasizing throughout the call that he had no intention of doing so.
Most of the campaign’s significant war chest would fall to Vice President Kamala Harris, Chavez Rodriguez said, according to two people familiar with the discussion. Only a smaller pool of money would be kept by the Democratic National Committee.
As several donors posited what a participant derisively referred to as fanciful “West Wing”-type scenarios for replacing Biden, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who joined for part of the call, emphasized that the process would be “messy” and predicted that Harris would ultimately end up as the nominee.
Sunday’s call was just one of a series of similar conversations top Biden advisers and campaign leaders have been holding with Democratic officials and donors after Biden’s halting debate performance rattled the party elite.
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