The BOLD PAC’s endorsement of President Joe Biden isn’t exactly what it may seem.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political arm threw its weight behind Biden on Friday, giving the president much-needed support as more and more Democratic lawmakers call for him to step aside.
But the group’s decision to endorse Biden was actually made weeks ago — prior to the debate performance that triggered Democrats across the party to call for the president’s withdrawal, a source told NOTUS.
At the time, only one Democrat in Congress — Rep. Dean Phillips, who waged a long shot bid against Biden in the primaries — had publicly called for generational change.
BOLD PAC didn’t give some members a heads-up until early Friday morning that it would be announcing the endorsement within hours, the source, a senior Democratic aide, said; BOLD PAC leadership told members that it had been working directly with the Biden campaign on the timing of the endorsement.
“They volunteered the CHC to be the last soldiers to die in a war that’s already lost. Sí se puede, or whatever,” the aide said.
The process for endorsing a candidate starts with a vote of the PAC board to approve it and then goes to a full membership vote, the aide said.
BOLD PAC did not comment by time of publication. The Biden campaign declined to comment.
Multiple CHC members have broken with Biden. Rep. Raúl Grijalva was one of the first lawmakers to call on Biden to withdraw from the race after the debate. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez went as far as to suggest that Biden should resign as president.
The CHC met with Biden over a virtual call last week, during which Rep. Mike Levin of California told the president directly that he needed to drop out of the race.
On Friday morning, another member of the Hispanic caucus, Rep. Chuy Garcia, came out against the president’s reelection bid, joining progressive members and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus in a letter calling for Biden to “pass the torch.”
That said, the majority of the CHC have either been quiet about Biden’s reelection bid or been vocal supporters of the president’s.
“I’m 1,000% behind this president. I just spent a few days with him in Nevada. I saw him on the go. I saw the reception. I saw what people were saying to him. They were telling him to stay in, to fight. And today we’re proud that the Hispanic Caucus’ political arm, BOLD PAC, is endorsing the president, led, of course, by Chair Linda Sánchez,” the chair of the CHC, Rep. Nanette Barragán, said on MSNBC Friday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, too, has thrown her support behind Biden. “People underestimate Biden’s performance,” she said in an Instagram livestream Thursday.
—
Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.