WASHINGTON – Sen. Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, said Tuesday night that he doesn’t think President Joe Biden can beat former President Donald Trump in the November presidential election, the harshest statement by a Senate Democrat to date.
He stopped short of calling on Biden to drop out of the race, but in an interview with CNN he argued Democrats have a “moral obligation” to “do everything we can” to defeat Trump.
He noted that at this point in the 2020 election cycle, Biden leads Trump at the national level by nine percentage points, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led Trump by five points in the 2016 election cycle. As of Tuesday night, Biden is currently trailing Trump by about two percentage points, according to an average of polls.
“I’m sure President Biden has a different view than I do about the prospects in this election, and we should have that discussion,” Bennet told CNN’s Catlin Collins.
“I don’t think the White House has done anything since that disastrous debate to actually demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, that they have a credible plan to win the battleground states that they need to win to win the election. And they need to do that,” Bennet said.
The interview came after Biden’s debate stumbles last month sparked panic within the party about whether he could effectively represent it in an election that many Democrats see as an existential fight against Trump and his Republican allies.
Senate Democrats met for the first time in more than two weeks on Tuesday, and members who left the luncheon were tight-lipped about the substance of their conversation. But they made clear they had no intention of sparking a public outcry that would force Biden to step down as the party’s nominee.
But Bennet and several of his colleagues argue that Biden needs to do more to show voters he is capable of making a successful case against Trump in the general election.
Bennet argued on CNN that a Biden win could impact not only his own election but other elections as well. The Colorado senator said Democrats risk losing the House and Senate in the fall and that a second term for Trump could lead to more Supreme Court nominees.
“I think the entire future of our country is at stake,” Bennett said. “I think it’s crucial that we address the concerns of the American people, rather than ignoring them.”
In an interview with CNN, Bennet noted that no one in his caucus had directly said Biden should drop out of the election.
Biden has made clear he has no plans to back down from seeking reelection. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers on Monday morning, he said he remains “firmly committed” to remaining the party’s nominee.
“There is still a long way to go until Election Day, and the work to count every vote is far from over,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement to multiple media outlets after Bennett’s interview.
