Biden allies push to speed up nomination vote amid backlash among Democrats

A quiet pressure campaign is underway to push President Joe Biden’s formal nomination to begin as early as next week – a month before the party’s convention in Chicago – even as calls intensify within the highest ranks of the Democratic Party for Biden to reconsider his reelection bid.

A quiet pressure campaign is underway to push President Joe Biden’s formal nomination to begin as early as next week – a month before the party’s convention in Chicago – even as calls intensify within the highest ranks of the Democratic Party for Biden to reconsider his reelection bid. There has been a push among some Biden allies to kick off the virtual roll call process as quickly as possible, three Democratic officials familiar with the discussions told CNN. Two key Democratic committees have long been set to gather this coming Friday and Sunday to discuss the exact timeline for delegates across the country to start casting their votes. The earliest that voting could begin would be after the second meeting on Sunday. Democrats have been planning for weeks to conclude the nomination process before August 7 – well before the Chicago convention next month. But still, if voting were to begin Sunday or soon thereafter, that would mark an aggressive timeline and draw fresh scrutiny from other Democrats eager for Biden to acknowledge his challenges and step aside. The DNC virtual roll call process was initially put in place for the party to step around an issue in Ohio that threatened to leave Biden off the ballot in that state. Lawmakers in Ohio have since passed a law to make that issue moot, but the DNC has pointed to the potential of a legal challenge by Ohio Republicans for moving forward with the virtual roll call anyway. For Democrats who are afraid Biden will lose to Donald Trump and take the Democratic ticket down with him, time is running out to make their case to the president, his family and a remarkably tight circle of advisers. But even as those entreaties are being made daily behind the scenes, plans are being made to solidify his standing with the help of party rules in the Democratic convention process. Rep. Jared Huffman, a progressive Democrat from California, told CNN that there’s a “growing number of members” concerned about the virtual roll call vote, calling it a “terrible idea” and a “dumb thing.”