Michigan Dems reverse decision to boot rep from 'coordinated effort' over call for Biden to drop out
Two of Capitol Hill's most prominent Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), are privately, according to reports, urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race — as they believe he is unable to defeat GOP nominee Donald Trump in November.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have, for weeks, been openly calling for Biden to suspend his reelection campaign. One of them is Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Michigan), who, according to Politico, was "booted last week from a coordinated effort between the Biden campaign and the state party to elect candidates up and down the ticket."
But that decision, Politico journalists Sarah Ferris, Ally Mutnick and Elena Schneider report, was reversed on Thursday, July 18.
Mia Ehrenberg, a spokesperson for Biden's campaign, told Politico, "Rep. Scholten is welcome at the coordinated campaign, and we look forward to campaigning with her this fall."
Ferris, Mutnick and Schneider note that according to two Politico sources, the " initial decision to remove Scholten from the joint effort — which would have essentially cut her off from the combined field effort between the presidential, Senate and House races — came from the Michigan state party."
"If she had remained excluded from the coordinated effort," the Politico reporters explain, "it could've meant that when Democratic organizers were campaigning in her district, they would tout Biden and the party's Senate nominee — but not Scholten. The Michigan Democratic Party declined to comment. But two people familiar with discussions said Scholten had specifically infuriated state leaders when she spoke out against Biden — on the same day that the president was already visiting Michigan — without informing them of her plans, according to the two people."
Read Politico's full report at this link.
