They’re still ridin’ with Biden. For now.
The Colorado Sun on Thursday polled nearly 20 of the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, and none said they planned on not backing Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee for president.
However, some said they didn’t think Biden is the best option amid questions about his mental fitness and ability to beat Donald Trump, while others declined to comment.
Colorado will have 87 delegates to the Aug. 19-22 convention, including the state’s two U.S. senators and five U.S. House members. And while they are instructed to vote in “good conscience” to back Biden since he won the Democratic presidential primaries this year in a landslide, they’re not required to do so.
If Biden were to abandon his reelection bid, it’s generally accepted that delegates would be free to back whomever they want.
Former state Rep. Polly Baca, a DNC delegate from Denver, called herself a “strong supporter of President Biden.”
“There isn’t anybody else who can take his place,” said the 83-year-old, calling accusations that Biden, 81, is too old to be president offensive.
She added that if Biden drops out, Vice President Kamala Harris is the only choice to replace him. “If you don’t choose Kamala then it’s an insult to women and people of color,” she said.
Ayinde Summey, a delegate from Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in the Denver suburbs, said he is “absolutely thrilled to renominate the Biden-Harris ticket.”
“His fastball was not the quickest at the debate,” he said. “Biden tried to answer every question. It was not the best performance,” but “all Trump did was lie.”
Summey added: “We should keep promoting the historic ticket until something changes otherwise.”
Calyn Rieger, a 24-year-old from Avon who is an at-large delegate, will be following in his grandmother’s footsteps to the DNC. She attended the 1968 convention in Chicago. He is for Biden all the way.
“I have a strong feeling that Biden will perform really well in this election,” Rieger said. “He’s not the candidate for the Democratic Party. He is the candidate for the American people.”
Current elected officials from Colorado who are DNC delegates and standing by Biden include Jefferson County Commissioner Tracy Kraft-Tharp, Colorado Board of Education Member Rebecca McClellan, and state Reps. Leslie Herod of Denver and Meg Froelich of Englewood.
When asked about her nomination plans, Froelich sent The Colorado Sun a meme with a picture of a prancing horse and a pig wearing a Trump wig captioned: “Your choices are a proven older workhorse and a loud squealing pig.”
“I have zero angst about supporting Biden over the guy on (Jeffrey) Epstein’s plane with 34 felony convictions and three pending trials,” Froelich said. “Don’t get me started on Jan. 6 or COVID response.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a DNC delegate, declined to comment on his nomination plans. Colorado Treasurer Dave Young, another delegate, didn’t respond to a Colorado Sun inquiry.
RTD Director Paul Rosenthal referred questions to Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib, as did some other delegates reached by The Sun.
Many delegates simply didn’t respond to The Sun’s inquiries.
“We’ve got a strong delegation ready to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Murib said, pointing out how Democratic presidential primary voters in Colorado overwhelmingly supported Biden. “We’re looking to send a full delegation of support for the president and vice president to Chicago.”
Some DNC delegates from Colorado expressed lukewarm feelings about Biden to The Sun, even as they plan to support his nomination if he remains in the race.
“If he’s the candidate I’ll stick with him,” said Nick Isenberg, a delegate from the Roaring Fork Valley. “I think we’ll do better if Kamala Harris becomes the nominee. But I’ll stick with him if he is the candidate.”
Delegate Celeste Landry of Boulder questioned whether Biden will still be in the nominating process by the time delegates vote.
“My guess is he’s not going to end up going all the way to the convention,” Landry said.
And she said she’s worried about the down-ticket implications if Biden is the nominee. “It seems like it’s a difficult win for Joe Biden right now,” she said. “And we may lose the Senate. And the Dems have a chance of winning the House, but that chance may go away if those coattails aren’t helping.”
Wanda James, a University of Colorado regent from Denver who is also a DNC delegate, said her biggest concern is for the future of democracy.
“I know that Trump is a dictator and a fascist. And I know that the Democratic Party and our Democratic nominee is the only thing that stands between democracy and the end of democracy,” she said.
James supported Harris’ presidential campaign in 2020, holding a fundraiser for her. But at this point, James expects Biden to be the nominee.
“The Biden-Harris team is where I will cast my vote,” she said.
Even if Biden remains in decent standing among the state’s DNC delegates, Colorado voters’ view of him as diminished.
That’s the take-away from a poll conducted before the president’s bad debate performance that showed him leading Donald Trump by 6 percentage points.
The poll was conducted by Global Strategy Group, a Democratic firm that accurately predicted 2022 election outcomes in Colorado, among 800 registered voters from June 17-24. It had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, meaning Biden’s lead could be as small as 2.5 points or as large as 9.5 points.
That’s much less than the 13.5-point margin he beat Trump by in Colorado in 2020. One reason: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The poll showed the independent presidential candidate capturing 12% of the vote in Colorado, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3% and Cornel West, another independent candidate, at 2%. (Kennedy is slated to appear on Colorado’s ballot as a Libertarian, while West is slated to appear under the Unity Party banner.)
Biden had 42% of the vote, according to the poll, while Trump had 36% and 5% were undecided.
In a two-way race, the poll showed Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points, with 50% of the vote to Trump’s 40%. (Thus, the Kennedy-as-spoiler analysis above.)
Whether Kennedy actually gets on Colorado’s ballot remains to be seen. Libertarians are fighting over whether he or the party’s national nominee, Chase Oliver, should get the presidential ballot slot in Colorado in a battle that could end up in court. Kennedy also turned in voter signatures Thursday to appear on Colorado’s ballot as an unaffiliated candidate, so he has an insurance policy assuming his campaign collected a sufficient number.
Kennedy needs to have gathered 1,500 signatures from voters in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to make the ballot. His campaign said it turned in more than 30,000 in total, but it’s unclear if those meet the district requirement. State elections officials have until Aug. 1 to review the signatures.
Again, the Global Strategy Group poll was conducted before Biden’s poor debate performance June 27, after which his numbers slipped nationally. It’s fair to assume they slipped in Colorado, too, suggesting – at least on paper – that the state appears to be in play.
Andrew Baumann, the Global Strategies Group pollster who conducted the survey, indicated Democrats shouldn’t worry too much.
He said Colorado is “definitely not in play” and that while Biden is underperforming a bit relative to his 2020 margin, “it’s important to note that Trump hasn’t gained vote share, Biden has lost votes to undecideds.”
A GSG polling memo also says Biden’s support has dropped among some key subgroups: unaffiliated voters, Denver metro voters, younger voters, and, especially, voters of color.
Baumann also said polls always overstate support for third-party candidates, but that it’s clear that they will hurt Biden in Colorado. If Kennedy isn’t on the ballot, he predicts Biden runs away with the race again.
Finally, Baumann said while it’s very possible Biden’s numbers have dropped in Colorado since the debate, the impact may be smaller here given that it’s proven to be such an anti-Trump state.
Even if the state is not in play, a smaller margin of victory for Biden in Colorado would likely have down-ballot effects. The 3rd and 8th congressional districts, as well as all of the Republican-leaning legislative seats Democrats won in 2022, could be at risk.
Forty-two percent of those polled said they had a favorable view of Biden, while 55% said they had an unfavorable view of him. By comparison, 48% said they had a favorable view of Democrats in Colorado, while 42% said they had an unfavorable view of them.
For Trump, 39% of those polled said they had a favorable view of him, while 58% said they had an unfavorable view. Republicans were faring slightly worse, with 38% of respondents saying they had a favorable view of them and 51% saying they had an unfavorable view.
U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, became the first member of Congress from Colorado to encourage Biden to drop out of the race when she issued a written statement Friday saying he should “pass the torch.”
Pettersen said Biden “saved our country once, and I’m joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again.”
“President Biden is a good man who has served this country faithfully and admirably over his decades of service,” she said. “I had the privilege of being an organizer on his 2008 campaign, and he is a big reason I went down the path of public service myself. I have deep admiration and love for Joe Biden and all he has done for our country, which is why this decision is so painful, but my son and my constituents can’t suffer the consequences of inaction at this critical moment.”
Other members of the delegation, including Democratic U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, have expressed concerns about Biden’s ability to beat Trump in November – Bennet said Biden may be on track to lose to Trump in a landslide – but they’ve stopped short of asking him to exit the race.
Gov. Jared Polis, too, has raised doubts about Biden’s ability to win and questioned whether he should be replaced as the Democratic nominee.
“It’s not about a debate or a news conference. It’s about protecting our democracy and protecting our freedoms and winning in November,” Polis said Friday at the National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City, according to Colorado Newsline. “And I think the president needs to show what will change that will enable him to do that, because if the election was held today he likely wouldn’t win.”
