Biden decision on future expected in coming days, and Harris is considered heir apparent

Well-connected Democratic Party insiders say they expect President Biden to make a major announcement about his future soon after the Republican National Convention concludes in Milwaukee and that congressional leaders expect Vice President Harris will become their nominee for president if Biden drops his reelection bid.

The talk among high-level Democratic strategists and donors has now turned to who is best positioned to serve has Harris’s running mate, and the short list has boiled down to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D).

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) have each communicated to senior party leaders that they would not be interested in serving as Harris’s running mate, according to a person familiar with the candidates in the mix to join Harris atop the ticket.

Biden has come under intense pressure from party leaders, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who have told the president directly that a majority of Democratic senators and large number of House members don’t think he can beat former President Trump.

Alums of former President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 winning presidential campaigns are prepared to help Harris get her own presidential campaign operation up and running if Biden agrees to step aside, according to a source familiar with the transition plan.

Democratic Party strategists say Biden has failed to reassure rattled Democratic lawmakers and donors that he’ll be able to recover from his disastrous debate performance last month and put to rest incessant questions about his mental acuity, energy and health.

Instead, sources say Biden has become trapped in the narrative that he’s too old to effectively serve another four years as president, and there doesn’t appear to be any way to dispel it before Election Day.

Congressional leaders are “lukewarm” on Harris as the nominee but recognize her favorable rating is higher than Biden’s and believe the president can help boost her numbers by campaigning for her, according to a person familiar with the leadership-level discussions.

“Conversations are happening, and they’re different and stronger than they were a few weeks ago, even than a few days ago. They’ve intensified since Saturday,” said a person familiar with discussions among congressional leaders and Democratic donors.

“Right now, the president is committed to being on top of the ticket and leading the whole party to victory,” the source said, but added that Democrats at a “high level” are already looking ahead to what a new ticket would look like with Harris as the nominee for president.

White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates denied that Biden is contemplating dropping out of the race. 

“False,” he said in a one-word statement issued after The Hill reported Biden is expected to make a decision about his political future in the next few days. 

Kelly and Cooper have been floated in recent days as top-tier vice presidential running mates

The source said the Biden campaign’s plan “is to go out into the states this week,” but said that could change soon.

“A lot of stuff is going on in Delaware today,” the source added. “There will be some sort of strong statement coming out after the other guy goes on stage tonight,” referring to Trump’s acceptance of the GOP nomination for president at the convention in Milwaukee on Thursday evening.

Biden’s campaign team has led supporters to believe the president will reaffirm his commitment to stay in the race through Election Day, but some of them suspect he could announce a decision to end his campaign.

“I don’t know what the message that will end up being,” the strategist added. “There’s lots of time between now and then.”

Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday after holding events in Las Vegas and returned to Delaware to “self-isolate,” which could postpone any announcement on his future until Monday.

But the president would have incentive to settle the turmoil in his party before senators and House members return to Washington, which will set off a new round of concerns and calls for him to end his campaign. House Democrats are scheduled to fly in Monday, and senators will be back at the Capitol on Tuesday. 

Democrats say Trump will get a polling boost from the failed assassination attempt at last weekend’s Butler, Pa., rally, which has had a unifying effect on Republican voters, and from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, making Biden’s chances of staging a comeback seem all the more unlikely.

One Biden ally said the president remains defensive, even defiant, about his political future, but those around him are seeing the writing on the wall, sources tell The Hill. 

As Biden remains holed up at his Delaware beach house with COVID-19, top Democrats have continued to sound the alarm on his prospects of winning the presidential election. And there was a palpable sense from those inside the campaign and close to it that the end is near. 

For starters, the latest round of polls continue to spell trouble for Biden. “It keeps getting worse,” one strategist close to the campaign said. “There has been no proof to the contrary. And morale is like I’ve never seen. It’s bad. It’s like everyone can sense what’s coming.”

“At this point, it’s untenable,” one surrogate to the campaign said. “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.” 

And while small donors have continued to trickle in, major fundraising is in the hole, sources said, as major donors continue to withhold money. 

“There are significant cracks, and they are beyond repair,” said one major Democratic donor, who added that fundraising is “bleak” because “Biden’s candidacy is clearly on the brink of collapse, and the campaign knows it.” 

“It’s cooked,” the donor added. 

A second Democratic donor agreed and said, “the overall consensus is that Biden won’t be the candidate, and we’re all in a holding pattern to see who will be.”

A senior White House official told ABC News on Thursday that nothing has changed regarding Biden’s candidacy, and he plans to hit the campaign trail next week. 

“He is going to win the nomination, and then the party is going to need to unite,” the official told ABC News.

A Democratic strategist confirmed media reports that Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi told Biden in separate meetings that there’s broad pessimism among Democrats on Capitol Hill that Biden can win in November and discussed polling showing that Biden is now a significant underdog heading into Democratic convention in Chicago.

“It’s individual takes from three perspectives. They all amount to the same thing,” said the source, who explained the message from congressional leaders to Biden is that he’s unlikely to win a second term.

Some Democratic strategists, including senior members of Obama’s political team, visited with Biden’s inner circle more than a year ago to voice their grave misgivings about Biden running for a second term.

“There’s not a single senator that doesn’t want him to go, maybe with the exception to [Chris] Coons,” the Democratic senator from Delaware and national co-chair of Biden’s campaign, said a second high-level Democratic source. “The dam has broken.”

Kenneth Baer, a Democratic strategist and former Obama administration official, pointed to a recent Associated Press/NORC poll showing two-thirds of Democratic voters want their party to nominate someone other than Biden for the presidency.

“President Biden is in a box. The problem is that unlike other questions may have about a candidate, this question is very hard to disprove. Is he young enough or have the mental facility enough to be a winning presidential candidate? What could he possibly [do] to change people’s minds and do so in a very quick way?” Baer said.

“The polling has been pretty consistent for more than a year. There were always large majorities of Americans, of independents and even a majority of Democrats felt he was too old for the job. I don’t know what he could [do],” he added. “The debate happened and that was a way to do that, and it didn’t work. What could you do next?”

Schumer met with Biden on Saturday and “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to” the president, according to Schumer’s spokesperson.

Jeffries warned Biden in a meeting Thursday of last week, before the Trump shooting, that his continued campaign could scuttle the chances of Democrats winning control of the House.

A spokesperson for Jeffries said the leader “directly expressed the full breadth of insight, perspective and conclusions reached about the path forward” on behalf of the House Democratic Caucus.  

CNN reported Thursday that Pelosi privately told Biden in a “recent conversation” that polls show he can’t beat Trump and warned he could destroy the chances of a House Democratic majority.

The Democratic source said Biden’s top-level advisers, including former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, first lady Jill Biden and the president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, are now “facing the music” after hearing feedback from congressional leaders.

“Everybody understands Kamala is the only play” if Biden steps down, the person added.

The strategist said the longer Biden waits to announce a decision to drop out, the “more difficult for us to make all the transitions we need to do” to build a campaign around a new ticket.

“The whole Obama alumni are ready to take over Harris’s campaign and run it. That means Obama is all over this,” the source added.

Harris has her own problems, including a history of high staff turnover, and she is not well-liked by Biden loyalists.

Kelly — who has surged to the top of Harris’s short-list of running mates, according to two strategists — says he’s still firmly behind Biden continuing his campaign.

“We’ve had meetings with Sen. Schumer over the last couple of weeks talking about this issue, but I think the reality of the situation is that President Biden and Kamala Harris are our nominees,” he told MSNBC. “Millions of Americans voted for them across the country in 50 states and territories. We have an election in 110 days, and we’ve got to be focused on that.”

An adviser to Newsom did not respond to a request for comment about the California governor taking his name out of consideration for Harris’s running mate, and the governor’s press office did not return a voice message.

A spokesperson for Whitmer declined to comment on the Michigan governor’s interest in running for vice president.

Both donors said there is still some uncertainty in the donor community about whether Harris can win against Trump.

“A lot of us think there should be an open convention. It would create a lot of excitement.”

Updated at 9:02 p.m. ET