In the three weeks after his ill-fated debate, one group held conspicuously firm in their demand that President Joe Biden remain atop the Democrats’ ticket in November: the 59-member Congressional Black Caucus.
Even if that steadfastness meant Vice President Kamala Harris, a former CBC member herself, would remain as the White House No. 2 and have to wait another four years for a shot at the top spot, the group was notable in that its first member to say Biden should drop out, Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), didn’t make his position known until Friday, two days before Biden announced his decision to leave the race.
Several CBC members told HuffPost the reluctance to cast Biden adrift stemmed from two main factors: loyalty to a president they said had done right by them in his time in the White House and fear a free-for-all would erupt within the party if he was forced out.
“People did not want to judge Biden based on a 90-minute debate performance, because he has a history. His history has been very positive toward the Black agenda, and he has delivered,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).
“He was there for us, and we felt an obligation to be there for him,” he said.
“He has made a difference for us in terms of showing us that he really did mean it when he said he was going to be a president for all people,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).
Green said he would be “eternally grateful” to Biden, ticking off Biden choosing Harris as his vice president, Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court and Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be the ambassador to the United Nations as among his big accomplishments.
Black voters have been among Biden’s strongest supporters since the 2020 primaries, and he owed a particular debt to one the CBC’s most visible members, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), whose endorsement helped Biden win the 2020 primary in South Carolina and jumpstart his faltering campaign.
But the relationship was not always that way. One of the most dramatic moments in the 2020 Democratic primary season was, notably, when Harris challenged Biden over his opposition early in his career to forced busing as a racial integration measure.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public school. And she was bused to school every day,” Harris said at a debate. “That little girl was me.”
The other worrisome question for Black lawmakers was uncertainty over what would happen if Biden stepped aside. While elected party members, party officials and grassroots party delegates to the national convention quickly signed on to Harris, it was not obvious that was going to happen before Biden stepped aside.
“If it’s somebody else, and the people pushing Biden out did not appear to be supporting Kamala, if it’s somebody else, then what happens at the convention?” asked Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).
“A lot of us have been around long enough to know you don’t come out of a convention like that united,” he said.
CBC members brought up the ghosts of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago that was notorious for police rioting against protesters and the 1972 convention. This year’s convention will also be in Chicago.
“I remember what happened in ’68. It was chaos. Although Hubert Humphrey got the nomination, Richard Nixon became president. I was concerned about that,” Green said.
“We knew that a food fight convention would not be good. It would pit us against those who wanted another candidate,” Johnson said. “We were all in for Kamala Harris. An open primary call means we’re not satisfied with Kamala Harris.”
How Harris will ultimately play with both Black voters as a bloc and with voters in general in November is unclear, but the CBC members sounded optimistic.
“I always said if something, God forbid, was to ever happen to President Biden or if he should change his mind, [Harris] would be the rightful heir apparent. So it was no complexity or difficulty to shift our attention because the mission remains the same,” said Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio).
Johnson said he wasn’t worried about Harris’ standing with Black voters.
“Forty-four thousand Black women got together Sunday night for a quick impromptu Zoom call,” he said, a sign of the grassroots support she enjoys.
“She has a reservoir of support perhaps like exists on Mars, where you have to dig for it but you find it. I think it’s there,” he said.
As for concerns among some Black voters Harris may not play as well with the broader electorate as Biden did, Clyburn had his own answer when he appeared Sunday on CNN.
“You’re never confident as to what voters will do under any set of circumstances,” Clyburn said.
“I am confident of this as well: You never know until you get in the contest and you run the race.”