Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett calls on Biden to withdraw from presidential race
Doggett, 77, is the first Texas Democrat in Congress to call for Biden to withdraw from the ticket.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, called on President Joe Biden to step down as his party’s nominee for the White House on Tuesday citing the president’s poor performance at a debate against former President Donald Trump last week.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump,” Doggett said in a statement Tuesday. “I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
Doggett, 77, is the first Democratic member of Congress from Texas to call for Biden to withdraw from the ticket. Biden’s performance during last Thursday’s debate alarmed Democrats in Texas, who are facing a number of competitive races down ticket, including for U.S. Senate.
Doggett shared the title of longest serving member of Congress from Texas with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and represents a comfortably Democratic seat based in Austin. He has been in Congress since 1995.
In his statement, Doggett thanked Biden for his service, saying he had “achieved much for our country at home and abroad,” including the post-pandemic recovery and restoring administrative norms after the Trump presidency. But he said Biden does not have the best chance of challenging Trump among the party, expressing an urgency among Democrats to take on a former president they say would be detrimental to the country’s democracy.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same,” Doggett continued. “While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional.”
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