Biden’s Fate Hangs Over Baldwin and Democrats in Congress as Voters Question His Fitness

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Biden’s Fate Hangs Over Baldwin and Democrats in Congress as Voters Question His Fitness

Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat seeking re-election, has noticed voters returning to the same question in recent days as she crisscrosses her state to make the case for her campaign: Does she think President Biden can win in November, and should he even try?

“Typically, I’ll go to an event; I’ll share my remarks,” Ms. Baldwin said in an interview on Friday at a newly opened campaign office in southwestern Wisconsin. “And then people come up one by one and — at first in a whisper — are really concerned.”

A soft-spoken two-term senator who has carved out a reputation for her cross-party appeal, Ms. Baldwin easily cruised to victory in 2018, and her race this year was never expected to be ultracompetitive, even in this crucial swing state. But rising concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and fitness to run have introduced new risks for Democratic candidates like Ms. Baldwin just 100 days out from Election Day, imperiling even seats that were once considered relatively safe for the party.

That has left Democrats already anxious about losing the White House to former President Donald J. Trump contemplating the prospect of widespread losses in Congress that could leave the party locked out of power altogether during a Trump presidency and well beyond.

In recent days, as Democratic leaders have privately pressed Mr. Biden to step aside, two other senators up for re-election, both in the tightest races in the nation — Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio — have called on Mr. Biden to step aside. It comes as Democrats have received polling suggesting that voters distrust elected officials who vouch for Mr. Biden’s mental capacity and endorse his candidacy.

In an interview, Ms. Baldwin declined to do either vouch for Mr. Biden or to call on him to step aside, saying only that she was conveying “as strongly as possible to the White House” the mounting concerns she has been hearing.

“Ultimately, this is his choice to make and his alone,” she said. “And I’m focused very much on running a strong race for myself and supporting the entire Democratic ticket, whatever that ends up being, and I want to be in the strongest position I can be to do that.”

On the campaign trail, Ms. Baldwin, who is facing a challenge from *********** Eric Hovde, a wealthy banking executive, is running on kitchen table issues. She is highlighting her work on the provision of the Affordable Care Act that allowed young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26; the measure in the Inflation Reduction Act that capped insulin prices at $35 per month; and her support for ********* rights, an issue that delivered many endangered Democrats victories last cycle.

“I am the lead Senate author of a bill that would restore Roe by codifying it at the federal level,” Ms. Baldwin told attendees at the Grant County Democrats’ picnic, drawing applause. “I do not yet have 60 votes on that bill to overcome the filibuster. But I do have a plan. And that plan involves you re-electing me to the ******* States Senate.”

The ***** among Democrats is that message will be drowned out by worries about Mr. Biden.

Representative Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat who on Friday called on Mr. Biden to step aside, said in an interview that he based his decision in part on concerns that the president would imperil other Democrats in states that had been considered safe — including Wisconsin, Virginia and Minnesota — though some like Ms. Baldwin

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in public polls.

“I’ve talked to members who’ve polled, and they’re going down when the president goes down in the polling,” Mr. Pocan said. “It’s not fair, but it’s a perception that is becoming a reality.”

If there is less turnout in Wisconsin, where Mr. Biden won in 2020 by roughly 20,000 votes, that could be enough to cost Ms. Baldwin her seat, and Democrats their chance of beating Representative Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin ***********, he added. “And that’s when I’m paying extra attention.”

Democratic voters are, too.

At the picnic in Platteville, where attendees lined up for bratwurst and shandies as a musician performed the national anthem on a saw, an otherwise jovial mood was tinged with angst about Mr. Biden’s prospects. A pair of voters quietly pulled Mr. Pocan aside to thank him for calling on the president to step down.

“He isn’t able to ****** back,” one man said in a hushed tone. “We’re totally with you.”

Overwhelmingly, Democrats interviewed said they were terrified by the prospect of a second Trump presidency and thought the best way to prevent it would be for Mr. Biden to step aside — an opinion often offered in interviews with little prompting, but much anguish.

“I’m probably leaning toward hopefully President Biden will drop out,” said Tim Hazen, who came out to the Platteville Democrats’ office to meet Ms. Baldwin. “I think that with all the recent polling and with his health situation, I really think that it would be a plus. Time will tell and he will tell. I respect the decision he makes, but another term with Donald Trump — my feelings are, it’d be a disaster.”

Mr. Hazen said that he grew concerned about Mr. Biden’s ability to campaign after the debate, and was not comforted by the television interviews the president did in the following days for damage control. Now, he said, his 20-year-old grandson who once was “so pro-Biden” was looking for alternatives.

“I am very nervous for President Biden,” Mr. Hazen’s wife, Jane, said. “I hate to say step down; I really hate that. I just want somebody to beat Trump. Somebody’s got to beat him, or we’re all in trouble.”

Jeff Schave, 70, who lives in Platteville, said the past couple of weeks had left him “in my heart of hearts, wondering if maybe some new energy concerning Kamala Harris might be what we need right now, to shake things up.”

“I don’t say that with any disrespect for the current president at all,” he added.

Mr. Schave’s nightmare scenario if Mr. Biden were to stay in the race, he said, would be Democratic losses up and down the ticket in battleground states.

“It’s such a critical tipping point,” he said. “I feel really bad about my position, but I think it’s the best for the country.”

John Klein, 79, a history teacher in Platteville, said he thought Mr. Biden could still rebound from what he acknowledged was a disastrous debate performance.

“He came out of it in the end, but in the beginning it was pitiful,” Mr. Klein said. “Then people just jumped on that, and it just went bonkers. And people laughed at him. And now it’s caught *****.”

Mr. Klein said he blamed Mr. Biden’s staff who prepared him for the debate, and would continue to back the president if he decided to continue his campaign.

“If he goes for it, I’m with him,” he said. “If they decide that Kamala Harris should be the candidate, I’m for her too.”

But only a few Democrats said they were excited about Mr. Biden’s candidacy.

William Garcia, the chairman of the La Crosse County Democrats, echoed the president’s frequent assertion that he had merely had “a bad night.”

“If you put someone up who is a little shaky with the right answer, versus someone who is blazingly confident in their inaccuracies and their ***** and their misinformation, I will take the person who is giving the right information every day,” Mr. Garcia said.

Kathy Schmidt, 68, a retired nurse, said she was growing increasingly nervous at “the lack of unity among Democrats,” adding: “If it’s Biden, I’ll vote for him; if it’s somebody other than Biden, I’ll vote for them.”

“If I’m being totally honest, I’d like to see somebody else,” Ms. Schmidt added. “But it would have to be really soon. The convention is a month away. And there has to be some unity around who that person would be. It’s a really short amount of time.”

For Ms. Baldwin, who has worked to appeal to independents and Republicans, Mr. Biden’s sagging appeal — and its potential to sour voters on incumbents associated with him — could be a serious threat to her re-election chances.

“When I look back to 2018, I had a lot of crossover voters,” Ms. Baldwin said of her last campaign. But in a state like Wisconsin, she added, “we haven’t seen that happen recently.”

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