{"id":26738,"date":"2024-07-09T01:12:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T01:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-sen-michael-bennet-expresses-concern-about-biden-staying-in-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:44:10","slug":"u-s-sen-michael-bennet-expresses-concern-about-biden-staying-in-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-sen-michael-bennet-expresses-concern-about-biden-staying-in-race\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet expresses concern about Biden staying in race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet speaks to a group of reporters Monday at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. He voices concerns about Biden's prospects after shaky debate performance. (Kathryn Squyres\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said Monday he hopes congressional Democrats will spend the week discussing whether President Joe Biden should continue his run for a second term.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very appropriate for us to be having this discussion because a lot of these concerns are on the minds of the American people and we need to make sure that we go forward with our best foot forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Colorado senator\u2019s remarks come amid a swirl of uncertainty among congressional Democrats about whether the president should continue his run for a second term after a shaky performance at the first presidential debate. Outlets including The Washington Post<\/em> have kept tallies<\/a> on the small but growing number of congressmen \u2013 all House representatives prior to Monday \u2013 who have publicly called on the president to step aside or expressed concern over his resolve to continue.<\/p>\n

The president Monday morning sent a letter to Democrats in Congress saying, that \u201cdespite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden also cited the 87% of Democratic voters who backed him in the primaries, writing, \u201cThe voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party. Do we now just say this process doesn\u2019t matter? That the voters don\u2019t have a say?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet said he met with constituents during the past week in Colorado who raised concerns about the president\u2019s vitality in the race, saying that though some had not made up their minds, \u201cthey were saying that they want to make sure that what they saw during the course of the debate \u2013 and frankly, in the week since the debate \u2013 so far was not a predictor of what this campaign was going to be like, or what a second term was going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet said he, too, had been \u201csurprised\u201d by the debate and hoped that it was just one rough night in the campaign, but that \u201cI don\u2019t think the week since has been a very good week for the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given what is at stake, he said having an \u201copen discussion\u201d and an \u201copen debate\u201d among Democrats on the Hill about the best way to win both the White House and the two chambers of Congress as \u201can act not of disloyalty, but an act of loyalty,\u201d and that he hopes \u201cthe president sees it that way,\u201d too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of our country is at stake. Our children\u2019s future is at stake. America\u2019s standing in the world is at stake. The majorities in the House, in the Senate are at stake. The presidency is at stake,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cAnd in my mind, these are not political questions. These are moral questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has been privately working to gather a group of senators<\/a> to approach the president and ask him to step aside. While Bennet didn\u2019t say whether he\u2019d been involved in the group, he said he agreed with Warner that the president must hear from more voices in the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I completely agree with Sen. Warner on that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that it\u2019s always good to hear from as many voices as possible, and I think that in every White House, there\u2019s a danger of insularity, and it\u2019s important to make sure everybody\u2019s fighting against that insularity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that he hadn\u2019t spoken with the president personally since about six weeks ago, but would be open to connecting with him soon.<\/p>\n

Despite the divides within the party, Bennet said he has \u201cno doubt that we will unify as Democrats,\u201d regardless of who becomes the presidential nominee. The senators are expected to discuss Biden\u2019s chances as a candidate further at their weekly Tuesday lunch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not Donald Trump\u2019s cult of personality, we\u2019re the Democratic Party,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cAnd we understand the moral stakes of this election, we understand that our children\u2019s futures are going to be determined by the election, our standing in the world, as I said, will be determined by this election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story misspelled U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet\u2019s last name in some instances<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The future of our country is at stake. \u2026 America\u2019s standing in the world is at stake\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1137,266,28,299,826,774,716,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-national-elections","tag-political-campaigns","tag-political-candidates","tag-president-joseph-biden","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79464,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26738\/revisions\/79464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26738"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}