Cracks continue to surface in Michigan Dem support for Biden as the nominee

President Joe Biden visits the CRED Cafe in Detroit, Mich., to speak with Black voters on May 19, 2024. CRED Cafe, which is owned by former NBA players Joe Crawford and Jordan Crawford, received a grant for renovations from Motor City Match through the American Rescue Plan Act. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

Even as many congressional Democrats work to maintain support for President Joe Biden as the party’s nominee this November, some Michigan Democrats have begun to publicly move in a different direction.

Many Democratic leaders, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing), have rallied to the president’s side. However, the debate over Biden has continued to gain steam following his “terrible” performance at the June 27 CNN debate vs. former President Donald Trump.

State Rep. Phil Skaggs (D-East Grand Rapids) posted on social media Tuesday morning that he believes Biden is not up to the task.

“Reluctantly, but after much deliberation, the time has come for me to speak from the heart. I’ve reached the conclusion that the time has come for President Biden to be that bridge to a new generation of Democratic leaders and pass them the torch so we can defeat Donald Trump,” Skaggs wrote.

While extolling Biden’s accomplishments over the last four years, saying he “returned the nation to prosperity, addressed long-neglected challenges, and healed the country from the divisions wrought by Trump’s disastrous term in office and attempted insurrection,” Skaggs said the debate performance against Trump had changed the calculus.

“Biden’s inability to be an effective communicator is troubling. We all hoped to see the president demonstrate the sharpness necessary to lead a winning campaign. But, we didn’t. It was heartbreaking. But, the images from the debate are now indelible in the public consciousness,” said Skaggs, who concluded that the current trajectory could lead to “a significant defeat in the fall, especially factoring in turnout problems and defections to third parties.”

Former Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lon Johnson also called for Biden to step down from the ticket.

“President Biden should withdraw his candidacy for President and allow the party to find a new candidate. It’s clear the President is suffering from cognitive decline, and the actions by him, his family, and staff since the debate have only reinforced that belief,” he posted to social media , and then added, “ He will be remembered for a lifetime of honorable service to our country.”

Other Michigan Democrats have taken a more nuanced approach, including Skaggs’ fellow House member, state Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor), who told Michigan Advance that there was no doubt that Biden’s debate performance was troubling, but added that the conversation seems overly focused on what Biden said that night.

“I don’t think Trump did any better given that most of his comments were just flat out lies,” said Morgan, who is also first vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “However, I think, as a party, we have to take a tough look and make sure that President Biden is ready to be the nominee. Ultimately, I think it’s up to President Biden to make that determination. And for me, if he’s confident that he can get the job done and beat Donald Trump, then I’ll stick with my current plan of working every day to get him and Vice President [Kamala] Harris elected.”

Morgan said from everything he has seen, the debate performance was more a case of it being a bad night for Biden, than a referendum on his capabilities as commander-in-chief.

“If I were anyone in the Republican Party, I would be saying we need a new nominee immediately, and we need anyone but Trump to be our nominee for far more legitimate reasons than the concern over President Biden. Seeing the speech that President Biden gave the day after the debate and subsequent speeches, I would say that he certainly can do the job and is capable of continuing on if he should choose to,” said Morgan.

Former U.S. Rep. David Bonior (D-Clinton Twp.), writing in an op-ed for The Macomb Daily , was much more direct in his opinion of Biden’s handling of the debate.

“Biden’s debate meltdown was heartrending. Forget the Democratic Party for a minute. Biden was a man lost and in pain. He sensed and I think knew he was lost,” said Bonior. “Watching we could feel it in his dazed gaze, his eyes opened wide and mouth agape. It was a look many of us recognized. Time not only caught up with him but administered a TKO [technical knockout]. If it were a real boxing match, the referee would have stopped it in the second round.”

Bonior, whose influence is still felt in Macomb County Democratic politics, went on to extol the virtues of putting Harris at the top of the ticket, saying the 59-year-old would instantly put Republicans on the defensive over the age issue with the 78-year-old Trump as their nominee.

“I envision Democrats uniting behind Harris before the convention and having momentum going into the voting month of September when early voting begins in some states,” said Bonior.

Morgan, however, said the strength of the Democrats’ bench at this point would potentially work against them with just four months until the election.

“We have a whole slew of governors who would be phenomenal, and I think would very handily defeat Donald Trump. We have the vice president who has shown herself as very capable and is literally President Biden’s vice president right now traveling the country, campaigning with him and for him. It’s almost like because we have so many great people who could be our nominee that it would make it a bit more difficult to select a different nominee at this stage in the process,” said Morgan. “It’s a great challenge to have. I think we’d be in such amazing shape if we were at the beginning of the process of choosing a presidential nominee. But it does seem that President Biden on the ticket really is the only clear central unifying nominee.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have all been mentioned as future presidential candidates.

Hill Harper, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, told the Advance that regardless of whether Biden stays on the ticket or not, the party has to be united in that decision or face electoral disaster.

“If there’s one thing that I think we can say for certain is that a divided Democratic Party loses in November,” he said. “That is absolutely true. The way Democrats win is by building coalitions. I think Michigan is the microcosm of the electorate across the country. We build diverse coalitions within the party, and we turn out voters by exciting people. We’re the big tent party where everybody’s welcome, and if you have division in the Democratic Party, it will rip it apart, and we will not win.”

Ultimately, Harper said Biden had always put the needs of the country first, and he believed he would do so in this instance, too.

“I think President Biden should only step back if he and, obviously, his family and close advisers, determined that cognitively and functionally, he’s not where he needs to be. And only they know that,” said Harper.

Harper’s opponent in the Aug. 6 primary is U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly). When the Advance asked her campaign to comment, they declined to do so directly, and instead pointed to a statement Slotkin previously made.

“No one feels good about the debate. The President had a bad showing, as he’s acknowledged, while Donald Trump lied throughout the debate on serious, consequential issues,” said Slotkin. “Especially in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, my mission is to do all I can to help Democrats keep the White House and hold our Senate majority.”

Four Republicans are running for the competitive open Senate seat: former U.S. Reps. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake) and Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), businessman Sandy Pensler and Dr. Sherry O’Donnell, a physician and former 2022 congressional candidate.

State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 8th Congressional District, told the Advance that Biden’s debate performance was clearly “subpar,” but declined to say whether he should step down. However, Pugh did say that as someone who has run a statewide campaign, she knows how important it is for the person at the top of the ticket to give people a reason to get out and vote.

“They have to address the needs and the concerns of everyday people,” said Pugh. “Whether it is abortion rights, whether it is addressing the existential threat of climate change … as we look at proposals such as (Project) 2025 that’s looking at taking the whole Department of Education out. People want to know that leadership is connecting to them [and] their everyday issues, that they have a leader that’s going to be able to help them sleep at night knowing that they can put food on their table and have a family sustaining wage.”

Other Democrats in the 8th District race are state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) and former Flint Mayor and Obama administration appointee Matt Collier. Requests for comment were made to both campaigns, but have yet to be returned.

Republicans running for the seat are Paul Junge, who lost to Kildee in the 2022 election; former Dow Chemical executive Mary Draves; and trucking company owner Anthony Hudson.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has yet to say anything publicly about the debate over Biden within the party, but many saw a social media post on Sunday on U.S. national women’s soccer team player Alex Morgan not making the U.S. Olympic team as a subtextual commentary.

“I adore Alex Morgan. One of the greatest of all time. But she’s aged significantly from her prime playing days & gracefully accepted that in order to win the gold it was time to pass the baton,” said Nessel.

Nessel declined to comment when asked by the Advance over the intent of the post.

Other Michigan Democrats who have expressed concern about Biden include Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, who has already publicly said Biden’s support in the Black community was “softening,” was quoted in Bridge on Monday as questioning whether Biden as the nominee was “putting our best foot forward.”

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids) told the Detroit News last week that she had “concerns” about Biden’s performance that she raised “strongly to the Democratic Party.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) is a close Biden ally, but has frequently warned Democrats not to take Michigan for granted over the years. She said her constituents have been less enthusiastic about someone other than Biden being the nominee.

“I think this is not as clear-cut as anybody wants it to be,” Dingell told CNN . “I’ve heard many people express their concern. They’re worried about democracy. I think that one of the things you have to really understand, even my colleagues are worried about what’s going to happen and what will happen to democracy. But I’ll tell you, I had people in parades shout at me, ‘Tell him to stay. We have his back,’ [at] union halls [asking] ‘Why are people saying this?’ I mean, I really do think that as much as you’re hearing a lot of different opinions from other people, that’s what’s happening.”

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