Act of Desperation? Biden’s Team Checks Delegates for Loyalty

Phone calls begin with boilerplate, they say, then ask: ‘Is there any reason you couldn’t or wouldn’t support the president?’

By JONATHAN MARTIN

07/10/2024 05:21 PM EDT

Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column chronicles the inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.

Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.

After a round of introductory questions confirming each delegate was still planning on going to Chicago and asking if they had served as delegate before, the Biden aide making the calls got to the point, the Democratic activists recalled to me in separate interviews.

One of the delegates said the line of questioning turned with an inquiry along the lines of, “Do you understand what being a pledged delegate means?” before the aide asked: “Do you have any potential disagreements with the president?”

Another delegate said the bottom-line question was even more direct. “‘Is there any reason you couldn’t or wouldn’t support the president at the convention?’” the delegate recalled the aide asking.

The third delegate said the version he received was more open-ended: “’Do you have any concerns?’”

The delegates were thunderstruck at the calls. One of them initially wondered if it was some sort of prank until double-checking the caller ID and seeing Delaware’s area code, 302. After hanging up, each of them reached out to other convention delegates they knew and found these individuals also received the calls.

The three delegates I spoke to, all long-standing veterans of Democratic campaigns, said they had the same initial reaction after hanging up with the Biden aide: Was this an attempt by the president’s campaign to potentially block or replace disloyal pledged delegates?

One of them, however, was less intimidated than depressed about the state of the campaign after getting a second call from another aide reading the same script and asking about “concerns” regarding Biden’s nomination. “They clearly hadn’t marked down they had already called me,” said this demoralized delegate.

Asked about the calls to delegates, a Biden adviser said “No outreach from the campaign itself is currently happening.”

The three delegates I spoke to who took the calls said the person identified themselves as working for the “Biden-Harris delegate operation team” and one of the delegates shared a screenshot of the phone number and what popped up, the full legal name of the campaign: “BFPCC INC.”

A fourth delegate I spoke to received a voicemail from a “302" area code Wednesday and shared it with me. The caller introduced himself as “delegate operations associate with Biden for President” and asked the delegate if he had “any questions or concerns” about being a delegate.

Asked for comment, the Biden adviser pointed to news reports of pledged delegates remaining supportive of the president.

But I’ve also learned of a group chat of a few dozen delegates who are organizing a letter urging the DNC to change the rules to make the nomination vote a secret ballot and free delegates to vote their conscience.

The inquiries come at a time when Biden and his senior aides are focused almost entirely on securing commitments from core Democratic groups, what one of the president’s campaign staffers privately lamented was effectively a rerunning of the primary. Biden has made individual calls to lawmakers and had group chats with the Congressional Black Caucus, Democratic governors and mayors as well as union members.

The delegate-by-delegate outreach reflects the campaign’s fear that the turbulence will extend to the mid-August convention. Polls indicate following his catastrophic debate performance show many Democratic voters prefer another nominee. The president has repeatedly said since the June 27 forum that he will not drop out. Yet the calls illustrate how his aides are working to head off a “Dump Biden” stampede from materializing in Chicago.

Most of the delegate slates are full of Biden loyalists, or at least were before the debate. Fearing disruptions from pro-Palestinian activists angry over the president’s Israel policy, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had worked assiduously for months to ensure each state and territory sent trusted delegates to Chicago.

However, one Democratic official familiar with the delegate slates estimated that at least a quarter of those pledged to the president are now wavering. This official portrayed the calls as only “a temperature check,” noting ruefully it would not be wise right now to have a full whip count because if it leaked it would underscore how precarious Biden’s grip on his party is at the moment.

While the convention delegates are almost entirely pledged to Biden, the party’s rules are not binding. And one Democrat pointed to what’s fairly mild language in the rules adopted by the DNC for the 2024 convention: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

The delegates I spoke to said they’d like to choose a new nominee.

“We’re so scared of disunity or chaos, but we need a game changer because we’re behind,” said one of the delegates. “Why not have a weeklong reality show people watch because there’s real drama and not just a coronation, multiple prime-time slots featuring our best young talent?” The delegate added: “The whole problem with Biden is he can’t prosecute the case against Trump, well, we have a dozen people who can, so let’s show them.”

None of the delegates I spoke to want to break their commitment — although one of them has considered potential election lawyers to consult if necessary — and prefer Biden to release them from their commitment.

Each of them was veering between sadness and anger, the same emotions most Democrats are struggling with in this moment of crisis for the party.

“I’m struggling with words to come up with words about how frustrating this is,” one of them said.