Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), one of several battleground state Democrats up for re-election in the Senate, said Monday that President Joe Biden needs to show he can survive a second term amid questions about his mental health.
Despite the criticism, and despite representing a Republican-leaning state that Biden lost by 16 percentage points in 2020, the three-term senator ultimately stuck with Biden despite calls from other Democrats for the president to drop out of the race.
“President Biden must prove to me and the American people that he can serve another four years in office,” Tester said in a statement. “In the meantime, I will continue to do what I have always done: stand up to President Biden when he’s wrong and protect Montana’s way of life.”
The Senate Republican campaign organization called Tester’s position “not surprising.”
“Jon Tester has voted with Joe Biden’s policies 95% of the time, so it’s not surprising that he would stand with his own supporters despite Biden’s obvious mental decline,” Maggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for the Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement.
Biden on Monday maintained his stance, both in writing and on air, that he would not withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
“The question of how to proceed has been under discussion for over a week now,” he wrote in a letter to congressional Democrats. “It is time to end it. We have one job: to defeat Donald Trump.”
The president also spoke on MSNBC Good morning Joe, The Beat, a popular morning talk show for Democrats and liberal politicians, issued a challenge to the party’s “elites.”
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“Run me. Please. Run for president,” Biden said. “Challenge me at the convention.”
The Democratic National Convention, where Biden is expected to become the party’s official nominee, begins on August 19.