Schiff Calls On Biden To Drop Out, Citing 'Serious Concerns'

LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, is the latest Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign.

In an exclusive statement to the Los Angeles Times, the ranking Democratic lawmaker and frontrunner in the California senate race said "our nation is at a crossroads" and it is time for the president to “pass the torch.”

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff told the newspaper.

While the "choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden's alone," Schiff said, according to the Times, he asked the president to "secure his legacy of leadership," but noted he would fully support the party's presidential nominee, even if it is Biden.

Schiff is running in heavily Democratic California for the U.S. Senate seat once held by the late Dianne Feinstein in a race against Republican and former Dodgers star Steve Garvey.

"Schiff's call for Biden to drop out comes a day after it was reported Garvey outraised him from April through June," according to the East Bay Times.

At least 19 House Democrats and one Democratic senator — Peter Welch of Vermont — have called on Biden to step down, citing concerns about the president's age after his listless performance in the first presidential debate against Trump in June.

Biden has repeatedly and emphatically refused calls to step down, insisting that he plans to stay in the race and win in November.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say Biden should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that "average Democrats" are still with him even if some "big names" are turning on him.

The poll, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40 percent in an AP-NORC poll in February.

The party intends to hold a virtual vote to formally make Biden their nominee in the first week of August, pushing ahead with plans to do so before the party's convention opens in person two weeks later — even amid intensifying calls from some in the party for him to bow out of the race.

The Democratic National Convention's rules committee will meet Friday to discuss its plans, according to a letter sent to members obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, and will finalize them next week. The letter from co-chairs Bishop Leah D. Daughtry and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz states that the virtual roll call vote won't take place before Aug. 1, but that the party is still committed to holding a vote before Aug. 7, which had been the filing deadline to get on Ohio's presidential ballot.

The letter from Daughtry and Walz comes a day after a contingent of House Democrats wary of swiftly nominating Biden as the party's pick for reelection circulated another letter raising "serious concerns" about plans for a virtual roll call. Their letter to the DNC, which has not been sent, says it would be a "terrible idea" to stifle debate about the party's nominee with the early roll call vote.

"It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats," said the letter obtained by the AP.

The Democratic convention opens Aug. 19 in Chicago, but the party announced in May that it would hold an early roll call to ensure Biden would qualify for the ballot in Ohio. Ohio originally had an Aug. 7 deadline but has since changed its rules. The Biden campaign insists that the party must operate under Ohio's initial rules to ensure Republican lawmakers can't mount legal challenges to keep the president off the ballot.

City News Service and The Associated Press contributed to this story.