House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday he’s confident Democrats can win with Joe Biden leading their ticket in November, offering the embattled president a show of support while a growing contingent of his party pushes him to leave the race.
Jeffries, a Democrat representing New York’s 8th Congressional District, spoke on “WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show” as the future of Biden’s reelection bid remains uncertain — with a wave of media reports Thursday suggesting the president was beginning to consider an exit. For three weeks, his campaign has been mired in scrutiny over his poor performance in the first presidential debate and a series of public polls that show him trailing former President Donald Trump in key swing states.
“The ticket that exists right now is a ticket that we can win on,” Jeffries told Lehrer. “There, of course, is work to be done — and that, in fact, is the case because we are an evenly divided country.”
Jeffries has been relatively tight-lipped — at least in public — about Biden’s electoral prospects since the debate three weeks ago. He and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also of New York, had private meetings with the president last week. Multiple media outlets reported that they expressed concern that Biden would hurt Democrats’ prospects down-ballot in November.
On Friday, Jeffries’ public comments were more optimistic.
He told Lehrer that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as a ticket, have “an incredible track record of support throughout the country based on what we’ve been able to accomplish to date.”
He declined to discuss his meeting with the president.
“It was a private conversation that I had with the president of the United States of America and it will remain private,” he said.
The remarks came just hours after Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon signaled Biden intends to remain in the race, despite swirling media rumors to the contrary.
“Absolutely, the president’s in this race,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday. “You’ve heard him say that time and time again.”
A Brooklyn Democrat, Jeffries has a keen interest in how the president would affect the bottom of the ticket. A handful of the closest House of Representatives races in the country are in New York state — including on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. The most recent public polling suggests that Biden is performing poorly, relatively speaking, in deep-blue New York.
And should his party win control of the U.S. House of Representatives this November, Jeffries would be in line to become speaker.
“We, of course, have to continue to articulate a compelling vision for the future designed to make life better for everyday Americans, and we need to articulate that in the boldest manner possible,” Jeffries told Lehrer on Friday. “If we’re successful in doing so — led by President Biden and, of course, the Democratic effort in the House and the Senate — then I believe things will certainly work out for us in November.”
His colleague, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx, has expressed deep skepticism about efforts to convince Biden to step down. In an Instagram Live session posted early Friday morning, she questioned whether those seeking Biden’s ouster have thought through the political and legal risk.
“I have not seen an alternative scenario that I do not feel sets us up for enormous peril,” she said.