House Democrats release letter asking DNC not to rush to nominate Biden

House Democrats are circulating a letter for signatures urging her Democratic National Committee to slow down his nomination process for President Joe Biden.

The letter asks the DNC to cancel its plan to hold a “virtual roll call” to formally nominate the president. That process could begin as soon as Sunday, weeks before the Democratic convention where the nominee is usually voted in person.

“Suffocating debate and prematurely shutting down any potential change to the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the coming days is a terrible idea,” the letter said.

The letter has received over 20 signatures so far, including Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Ca., Mike Levin, D-Ca. and Susan Wild, D-Pa., two sources told NBC News.

Huffman is one of several members leading the signature effort, a spokesperson for his office confirmed to CNBC.

“Representative Huffman and other members are very concerned about this extraordinary effort to speed up the nomination and do not believe that brute force is the way to achieve excitement,” the spokesman said.

The signatories have varied positions on Biden’s re-election, the sources said. Levin, for example, has openly called on Biden to drop out of the race, while Wild has yet to comment publicly.

The DNC decided to go with the virtual roll call approach Mayspeeding up his nominating schedule to meet an Aug. 7 deadline to get his nominee on the ballot in Ohio, a state that has become more of a Republican stronghold in recent years.

Ohio it has since pushed back the deadline for the vote to late August, but the DNC has maintained its fast-track nominating plan.

In the draft letter, House Democrats said that without the legal justification for Ohio’s ballot deadline, the expedited nomination process would be viewed as a “purely political maneuver.”

Despite concerns on Capitol Hill, the DNC doubled down on the mock roll call decision in a statement: “The suggestion that the timeline for the mock roll call has been accelerated is false. The timeline for the mock roll call process remains on schedule and has not changed since the DNC made this decision in May,” the DNC said.

The Biden campaign also weighed in on the mock roll call plan during a news conference Tuesday in Milwaukee.

“I think the answer here is very simple, it’s the fact that, you know, there have been mock roll calls in past presidential elections,” said Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks. “Ohio Republicans have decided to play games…It’s our obligation as a campaign to make sure President Biden is on the ballot.”

The letter comes as some Democrats continue to call for Biden to bow out of the presidential race after his lackluster performance in the June debate against former President Donald Trump. As of Tuesday, at least 19 Capitol Hill Democrats have come out publicly to urge Biden to bow out of the race.

Other lawmakers have issued more tepid statements, leaving the public to read the tea leaves from their positions on Biden as the party’s nominee. However, others have kept their concerns about Biden behind closed doors.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, for example, told donors in a private meeting Saturday that Democrats would lose both the Senate and the House if Biden remained in the race, according to Tuesday. New York Times report.

Despite pressure from Democratic lawmakers, donors and strategists, Biden has defiantly vowed to stay in the race.

“Fourteen million people voted for me to run for the Democratic Party, okay?” the president said in an interview Monday with NBC’s Lester Holt. “I hear them.”

The NBC interview was part of a larger campaign to save Biden’s political future with more public appearances.

In recent days, however, Biden’s media blitz has largely been drowned out by Trump’s assassination attempt at Saturday’s rally in Pennsylvania, where one attendee was killed and two others were seriously injured.

The horrific shooting further fueled the energy of this week’s Republican National Convention, where the GOP is rallying fervently around its new presidential ticket: Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Meanwhile, with the Democratic Party divided over Biden’s political future, lawmakers’ draft letter to the DNC said the party needs more time to sort out its presidential ticket and that a fast-track nomination process would undermine that effort .

“It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats — from delegates, volunteers, grassroots organizers and donors to ordinary voters — at the worst possible time,” the letter said.

“The Democratic Party should nominate its presidential ticket at the Democratic National Convention, in regular order, as we always do,” the letter continues.