Hours before President Joe Biden tried to calm fears about his candidacy with a live press conference, roughly 20 local Black clergy leaders gathered inside Georgia’s Gold Dome with a message for those with wavering political faith: stop calling for Biden to be replaced at the top of the Democratic ticket.
“Joe Biden on his worst day is better than Donald Trump on his best day,” said the Rev. Timothy McDonald, the pastor of Atlanta’s First Iconium Baptist Church, on Thursday. “We cannot judge a man on one night. Let’s look at what he’s done in four years.”
Biden’s disastrous debate performance, rather than his record as president, has been the focus of many voters in Georgia since the June 27 debate. Many Black voters and elected officials who helped carry Biden to the White House in 2020 have called for him to step aside so that Democrats can pick another candidate.
Enter this group of Atlanta-area ministers, who consider themselves among the leaders of Georgia’s Black faith community. No one, they say, from the Biden campaign or the Democratic Party asked them for a public display of support for the president’s reelection bid. Instead, they decided to make the position of Georgia’s Black church community clear at the behest of their congregants, several of whom have asked where Black clergy stand on Biden bowing out.
“We believe that Democrats, rather than fighting and debating among each other, need to unite and fight against the enemies of democracy, those who would seek to take away our rights and liberties,” said Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which comprises 500 churches.
The preachers noted a long list of accomplishments Biden has achieved as reasons they think he should stay in the race: helping end the COVID-19 pandemic, stabilizing the national economy, bringing Black unemployment to a record low in less than four years, and achieving a 61% rise in overall Black wealth between 2019 and 2022. (The wealth gap between Black and white Americans has continued to grow anyway, according to a Washington Post analysis.)
There’s also the more than $153 billion in student loan forgiveness Biden delivered after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his original plan to forgive $430 billion in student loan debt and the $260 million set aside for Georgia’s HBCUs via the American Rescue Plan Act.
Ellenwood resident Leah Foster said her sister was one of the people whose student loan debt was erased thanks to Biden. The 61-year-old executive assistant and member of Flipper Temple A.M.E. Church in Atlanta attended the Black preachers’ press conference in support of her pastor, Gregory Vaughn Eason, who also is a supporter of the president.
Foster said she believes Biden is the only person who can beat Trump right now, casting doubt that someone like Vice President Kamala Harris would be more effective.
“They’re already calling her the DEI candidate,” Foster said regarding racist remarks some critics have made about the nation’s first Black woman vice president. “We’re looking at the only person who can send Donald Trump back to Mar-A-Lago. Preferably, he’ll stay there this time.”
Fellow Flipper Temple churchgoer Lillian Roberts, 84, said she believes replacing Biden now would guarantee a Trump victory in November. She questioned whether election deadlines in some states would prevent a new Democratic candidate from being put on the ballot or bar Biden’s name from being replaced.
“Trump would automatically be in a position [to win] with no competition,” Roberts said.
Some polls show support for Biden has dwindled since the debate. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Thursday revealed that 56% of Democrats say they think Biden should cease his reelection bid. But a Pew Research Center poll conducted between July 1-7 showed Biden with a wide lead among Black voters, with 64% support compared with 13% for Trump.
Biden loyalists, including some of Georgia’s Black ministers, maintain that the man who defeated Trump in 2020 still gives them the best chance to win again in November. The list of Biden backers includes U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Georgia and other key members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who have circled their wagons around the president and urged their peers to do the same.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Biden on Thursday night to share the views of fellow Democrats in Congress. At least 20 Democrats have called for Biden to step down. Reports indicate others have expressed concerns privately that Biden will cause the party’s members to lose winnable down-ballot races.
“I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together,” Jeffries wrote in a Friday morning letter to his colleagues. “As House Democrats have done throughout this Congress, we will continue to work in the best interests of everyday Americans.”
