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Representative Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat who is running for Senate, warned during a private meeting with donors on Saturday that his party was likely to suffer overwhelming losses in November if President Biden remained at the top of the ticket, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Schiff's remarks at the meeting.
If Mr. Biden remained, not only would he lose to former President Donald J. Trump, he could be enough of a drag on other Democratic candidates that the party would most likely lose the Senate and miss an opportunity to win control of the House, Mr. Schiff said at a fund-raiser in New York.
"I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose," Mr. Schiff said during the meeting, according to a person with access to a transcription of a recording of the event. "And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House."
Mr. Schiff's remarks underscore the depth of the concerns in the president's party about the prospects for downballot Democrats if Mr. Biden remains in the race, even if most senior Democrats are still unwilling to express such dire warnings in public.
The event was held in East Hampton, N.Y., shortly before Mr. Trump was shot on Saturday. Public calls from Democrats for Mr. Biden to step aside as a candidate have dropped off since the attempt on Mr. Trump's life, providing Mr. Biden, who is insisting the he will remain in the race, an opportunity to overcome the dissent.
In an effort to end the internal battle, leaders of the Democratic National Committee are moving to formally nominate Mr. Biden as the party's candidate by the end of the month, weeks before their convention in Chicago in August.
The fund-raiser at which Mr. Schiff spoke was held for him; Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is running for Senate; and another Senate candidate, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.
Mr. Schiff, who has been among Mr. Trump's most outspoken critics, said at the fund-raiser that Mr. Biden and his campaign staff had been generally unwilling to engage the views of outside pollsters and political experts and urged them to do so, the people with knowledge of his remarks said.
At least one donor who attended the event and listened to Mr. Schiff's remarks said he left dejected, believing that Mr. Biden's chances of winning were now slim and that they should concentrate giving their time and money to downballot candidates in the hopes of salvaging something for the party.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Schiff's campaign declined to comment.
Mr. Biden's campaign pointed to statements that it and the president's allies had repeatedly made in recent days that he maintained strong support from members of Congress. Only a relatively small number have publicly come out against Mr. Biden's candidacy, the campaign said, noting support from members of groups like the Congressional Black Caucus.
In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" this month, Mr. Schiff expressed more guarded concerns about Mr. Biden's chances against Mr. Trump and said Mr. Biden would need to beat the former president "overwhelmingly" in order to overcome challenges by Mr. Trump that the election was stolen.
Mr. Schiff declined to say whether he thought Mr. Biden could win overwhelmingly, but he said Vice President Kamala Harris could do so.
"I think the vice president would be a phenomenal president," he said.
During the meeting with donors on Saturday, Mr. Schiff gave a far more blunt assessment of what he believed Mr. Biden's chances to be.
Mr. Schiff rose to national prominence in 2019 as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when he led the impeachment hearings against Mr. Trump for withholding aid to Ukraine.
The impeachment proceedings began after an intelligence community official seeking whistle-blower protections told lawmakers about a phone call Mr. Trump had with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. During the call, Mr. Trump implied that U.S. military aid to Ukraine was tied to Mr. Zelensky helping start investigations into Mr. Biden's family.
Posted In: SPY
