A veteran congressman from Central Texas has become the first elected Democrat in the nation to call for President Joe Biden to abandon his re-election campaign.
According to the New York Post, U.S. Lloyd Doggett, who has represented a variety of locations around the region and is currently the congressman for Central Austin, called for Biden to withdraw from the Presidential race following a calamitous debate performance last week.
“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 said.
“My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.”
While honest observers might question Biden’s so-called “commitment to our country,” considering that his administration has given almost $200 billion to Ukraine, Doggett’s statement is nevertheless noteworthy given his partisan affiliation.
Given Biden’s record in Ukraine, the Lyndon Johnson comparison is, perhaps, more apt than Doggett intended. Johnson retired in disgrace following many years of stalemate (or worse) in Vietnam. The Johnson administration also lied about the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident to entangle the nation in Vietnam, followed by several years of, at best, overly optimistic prognostications for the war that never seemed to materialize. By the time Johnson withdrew from the 1968 presidential race, his administration had developed a widely perceived “credibility gap” over the war.
Journalist Michael Tracey, meanwhile, speculates that Doggett’s statement has increased the odds of a Biden withdrawal by ten percentage points.
I’m revising my “odds” of Biden withdrawing upward from 20% to 30% after the public statement of Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) calling on Biden to stand down.
Doggett is far from a “household name,” but he’s been in office forever (since 1995) and represents an extremely safe…
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 2, 2024
After this, Democrat U.S. Jared Golden of Maine joined Doggett’s call.
No ads. No paywalls. No government grants. No corporate masters.
Just real news for real Texans.
Support Texas Scorecard to keep it that way!
