Leaked messages show that President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month has thrown California’s Democratic delegates into disarray and caused significant division within the Democratic Party, Politico reported on Thursday.
"I’m in tears," Renay Grace Rodriguez, delegate to the Democratic National Committee and president of the Stonewall Democratic Club, wrote in an invite-only Facebook group chat for convention delegates called the 2024 California DNC Delegate Group as the Biden-Trump debate was unfolding on June 27.
"What I was in tears about was Biden’s poor performance," Rodriguez told Politico on Wednesday, suggesting that the octogenarian president should step down as the party’s nominee.
While Biden’s incoherence on the debate stage put his mental capabilities under the spotlight, prompting calls from House and Senate Democrats for him to withdraw his reelection bid, the 81-year-old incumbent remains defiant and insists he will stay in the presidential race.
DNC delegate Susan Bolle, who said more than 150 voters in her district have asked her to call on Biden to step aside since the debate, urged Biden to "step down of his own accord and free his delegates."
"We should discuss this," Bolle wrote in the same Facebook group. "This is a painful experience on every level, but we play an outsized role in history this election. This cannot be left to chance."
Many of the DNC delegates also expressed their intentions of replacing Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, or Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
"Kamala isn’t the strongest overall but logistically it’d be the cleanest," delegate and Stonewall's vice president Nico Brancolini wrote. "But imagine the fury if a sitting vice president who is a black woman were passed over for any of the other candidates."
The Facebook group’s moderators later cracked down and said the channel could not be used to campaign for a different presidential ticket.
"We understand there may be some disagreement about whether Biden should stay in the race," wrote moderator and DNC delegate Sascha Bittner. "However, he has made it clear that he is, and the vast majority of us are pledged delegates to him. Thus, we have decided to prohibit any organizing for a new candidate for president in this group."
"Any post counter to that goal will be deleted," Bittner added. "Remember this is for hype and logistics, not negativity. (Except for Trump, lol.) Thanks!"
The crackdown caused further division within the group, with delegate Roberto Hernandez saying, "this is not what I thought Biden delegates would be like" and that he is "disappointed you would censor opinions that don’t match yours regarding the future of our party and country."
The leaked messages come as top Democratic leaders this week rejected a push by Biden and his allies for the DNC to virtually nominate the president ahead of the Democratic convention next month.
The latest developments "reveal how [Biden’s] grip on his party has slipped, with fundraising anemic and his top lieutenants bending after a threatened revolt over the campaign’s effort to speed his nomination," the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.