First elected Democrat calls on Biden to drop out of race: 'President failed' in debate

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, on Tuesday became the first elected Democrat to publicly call on President Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his performance in the first presidential debate against former President Trump.

Doggett said that "too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory" in the November election.

"President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump's many lies," Doggett said in a statement.

The CNN presidential debate, which took place last Thursday, was the first of the 2024 election cycle. Many Democratic commentators described Biden's performance as a crisis and some went further by suggesting that the party consider replacing Biden with a different candidate.