Democrats go public with fears of GOP ‘landslide’ that could jeopardize US democracy

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President Joe Biden and his advisers keep issuing unequivocal declarations that he’s staying in the 2024 race, but Democrats aren’t hearing it.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” repeating her position of a week ago as if Biden had not made any declaration at all.

“Speaker Pelosi fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do,” a spokesperson said in a subsequent statement. But the comments from such a senior member of the party had already essentially reopened the debate about whether Biden should go.

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch on Wednesday evening became the first Democratic senator — and the 10th congressional Democrat — to call for Biden to step aside as the nominee, writing in a Washington Post op-ed, “The stakes could not be higher.”

That all came on the heels of Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet on Tuesday evening voicing the concerns other Democrats have shared privately.

“Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Another Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith from Washington, agreed with that landslide assessment and implored Biden to reconsider.

“Don’t let this be your legacy, that you refused to step down and got him back in the White House,” Smith said, referring to Trump, during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “the Situation Room.”

And New York Rep. Ritchie Torres — a member of