Party revolt against Biden quiets, but re-election looks tougher

WASHINGTON—The assassination attempt on Donald Trump is having an unusual effect on President Biden’s political outlook: It is simultaneously quieting the immediate calls for him to step aside, while also potentially further weakening his prospects of winning in November.

Three days after the shooting, some Democrats said the once-steady momentum toward publicly pressuring the president to withdraw following his rough debate against Trump is slowing—at least for now—amid calls for unity in Washington. Several Democrats who think Biden has little chance of winning in November said they worry the time is passing to remove him from the ticket, unless he exhibits serious signs of mental acuity issues in public in the coming weeks.

Not a single Democratic lawmaker has publicly called on Biden to step aside since Friday, when two House Democrats appealed for him to leave the race. So far 18 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have said he should leave the race.

Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers, operatives and strategists said they believe Trump’s brush with death and his reaction to it—standing on stage with his first raised, blood smeared on his face—are galvanizing Republican voters, making them more likely than ever to show up on Election Day. That has left Democrats panicked that Biden’s prospects of winning a second term are slipping away.

“I do worry that the election is over,” said a longtime Democratic fundraiser and large Biden donor. A Democratic congressional aide said “Democrats are crestfallen” about the party’s current situation, adding that some Democrats think the White House’s strategy is to run out the clock. “If you can’t persuade anyone, inevitability seems the best way to prevent people from complaining.”

Asked by NBC News’ Lester Holt on Monday whether the shooting changed the trajectory of the race, Biden said, “I don’t know. And you don’t know either.”

Amid all the hand-wringing, some who think Biden should step aside say they aren’t giving up. Some Democratic donors and aides expect the calls for Biden to withdraw to resume once the Republican convention concludes.

“It’s not been put to rest at all,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D., Vt.), the first senator to call on Biden to withdraw from the race. “But there’s a pause here to just acknowledge the gravity of the situation.” Welch said the pause will be “pretty brief, because the reality is time’s marching on, and one way or another we have to make a decision.”Welch said there is “no question” that the assassination attempt strengthens Trump’s candidacy and “plays into his narrative.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), who called for Biden to drop out a week after the debate, said in an interview that Democratic colleagues who are considering joining him in publicly calling for Biden to step aside are struggling with how to move forward.

“I had a lot of calls on Sunday with people who felt as I do—an increased urgency to get a change at the top of the ticket out of concern that Trump and the Republicans will use the attempted assassination to their advantage,” Moulton said. He added that some lawmakers “want to jump, but want to jump together.”

The pause in calls to replace Biden comes as the window for him to withdraw might be rapidly closing. Democratic officials could, as early as Friday, take a step toward enabling a virtual roll call vote to nominate Biden well before the mid-August convention in Chicago. The virtual nomination effort was originally launched before the debate to account for an early Ohio deadline for ballot access—a deadline that has since been removed. But it could now also serve as a way of condensing the period in which Democrats can pursue their revolt.

Asked on Monday whether efforts to press Biden to step aside have fizzled out, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’re not going to politicize this moment. We’re just not.”

Jen O’Malley Dillion, Biden’s campaign chair, said in a call Monday that Biden will be laying out a “very clear contrast about his optimistic vision for this country and for the future.”

House Democrats aren’t sure when—if ever—the effort to replace Biden will pick back up. Any lawmaker coming out now risks facing a backlash for not letting the moment of national unity play out, said a House aide familiar with discussions among Democrats.

“It’s a bad look to break that up, at least for the next day or two,” the aide said on Monday.

An NBC News poll taken before the shooting found 33% of Democrats were satisfied with their presidential pick, while 71% of Republicans were satisfied with theirs.

Those who want Biden out of the race, either openly or privately, said the Republicans’ unity in the aftermath of the shooting, and the resulting potential boon to Trump’s election prospects, only bolstered the case that Biden should step aside.

In December, Zynga founder Mark Pincus wrote a $929,600 check—the largest amount allowed—to the Biden Victory Fund. Following this weekend’s shooting, he is pushing for other Democrats to challenge Biden’s re-election campaign.

“The attack on Trump and his brave reaction has only magnified the challenge for Biden,” Pincus told The Wall Street Journal. “It feels like the Dems have little to lose and everything to gain with an open convention where they could field a stronger candidate against Trump and his increasingly energized base,” he said.

Biden’s top aides see the president as a unifying figure, and the White House has taken steps to ensure that Biden is perceived to be above the political fray in the aftermath of the shooting, including a rare Oval Office address to the nation. Biden’s campaign also paused communications and pulled down television ads after the shooting.

Many Democrats—both those who think Biden should remain on the ticket and those who think he should withdraw—said the party must not let the shooting deter the president and senior officials from criticizing Trump’s record.

The White House signaled it would dial back some of Biden’s statements, but officials were vague about how sharp the president would be in his criticism of Trump. Asked if Biden would continue to call Trump’s agenda a threat to democracy, Jean-Pierre said, “We have our differences and it is OK to have our differences. It is OK to speak to someone’s record, to speak to someone’s character.”

Biden expressed regret Monday for saying during a July 8 call with donors to his campaign that it was “time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.” In the NBC interview Monday, he said, “It was a mistake to use the word.”

Republicans have made the case that Democrats’ criticism of Trump, including warnings that his election would threaten democracy, have raised the temperature in the country. Trump, Democrats counter, has repeatedly espoused violent and dark rhetoric on a larger scale than any other modern party leader. He has called those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 “hostages”; he mocked Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was attacked; and he has suggested Ret. Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed for treason.

“Every day you’re not making an argument about Trump is a day we will never get back,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama. “If we buy the premise that the argument that Trump is a threat to freedom and democracy is out of bounds after the shooting, then we will be ceding our best argument.”

Natalie Andrews, Dana Mattioli and Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.

Write to Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com, Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com, Katy Stech Ferek at katy.stech@wsj.com and Emily Glazer at Emily.Glazer@wsj.com