The chairman of West Virginia’s Democratic Party said it’s time to rally around Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee.
West Virginia’s Republican senator contends that if incumbent President Joe Biden isn’t up for a general election run then he should resign from office.
And the Republican nominee for governor, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, is repeating a call for Biden to be removed from office under the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.
That represents a range of reaction in West Virginia since Biden, 81, announced on Sunday afternoon that he will not seek re-election.
Since then, Democrats across the country have swiftly backed Harris, the vice president who has already locked up enough support from convention delegates to gain the nomination and whose ascension prompted more than $100 million in campaign contributions over just the past couple of days.
Biden has announced he will give a prime-time address from the White House at 8 p.m. today on his decision to exit the presidential race.
“I will address the nation from the Oval Office on what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people,” he said in a post on X.
West Virginia’s delegates going to the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening announced their support for Kamala Harris to lead the presidential ticket. West Virginia has 25 delegates going to the convention, plus two alternates.
“We had a deliberate, long, healthy discussion and debate over what to do, and we voted — took a voice vote — to endorse the nomination of Vice President Harris,” said Mike Pushkin, chair of the Democratic Party in West Virginia, speaking on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“When President Biden decided not to seek re-election — and I think he did so in a truly selfless act that’s so rare in politics these days; like you never see somebody stepping away from power like that and putting the country first — and when he did so he endorsed his vice president.”
Pushkin continued, “So she is the obvious choice. She is vetted. She is ready. And I believe the fundraising totals have shown that she is ready to do the job to take on Donald Trump.”
He said it’s time to coalesce around a candidate, Harris, and get on with campaigning. The Democratic Party was roiled with questions about the top of the ticket after Biden appeared at a late June debate against Trump with a soft voice and lost his train of thought several times.
“We’ve lost a lot of time. Since the debate, the discussion has been all about whether or not Joe Biden should stay in, whether he shouldn’t stay in — and, meanwhile, Donald Trump has been skating free without a whole lot of criticism Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., has endorsed Trump, at 78 now the oldest presidential nominee in U.S. history, in the general election. She has been a regular critic of Biden’s administration, particularly on issues of inflation and border security. Following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, she released a statement saying the incumbent should resign the office.
“I think it was apparent after his performance at the debate that he is not up to the job, up to the campaign — and then you could see the piling on. I said facetiously, the train’s coming — it’s just a matter of when it’s going to hit you. So I think that’s what happened. I think he made the right decision for himself, for the country and for everybody else involved. I have other questions around it, but I think it was the right decision,” Capito said on “The Dave Allen Show” on WCHS Radio.
She continued by suggesting that if the president isn’t up to campaigning for another four-year term, then he is not up to serving out the next five months.
“If the president’s determined that he can’t go through a campaign, can he really serve for the next six months?” Capito said. And, she asked, “Who in the White House, including the vice president, the cabinet members, the Democratic leadership — this doesn’t happen overnight, this fogginess or apparent cognitive issues he’s having — who knew about this? Who was covering up this apparent inadequacy as a president to be able to really formulate good decisions?” Capito served in the Senate with Harris, who represented California. But, she said, “The issue here is the policies. It may be a change from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, but it’s the same policies and probably more extreme.”
Morrisey released a statement saying the vice president should, under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, declare that President Biden is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
Morrisey was repeating a call he made after reports from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation of Biden’s continued possession of classified information suggested that a jury could perceive the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
“If he’s unfit, he should either resign or be subject to the provisions of the 25h Amendment,” Morrisey said on “Talkline.”
“And now, in light of what we’ve seen over the last month, it seems even more clear that President Biden is unable to discharge the powers and the duties of the office. This is an office with vast amounts of responsibility, so we think it’s important for the vice president to take this step because if he’s not going to be able to conduct a campaign and engage in all the traditional activities of a candidate, he’s going to be very hard-pressed to serve as the leader of the free world.”
Morrisey, who is supporting Trump in the presidential election, continued by saying, “You need someone who is mentally fit to serve in that office. I don’t even know that this is something that is politically positive to do. It’s just the right thing to do for the country because the job is such an awesome responsibility. You need to have someone who’s on top of it.”
