The Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate organization that helped elect President Biden, is now calling on him to quit the race for the White House.
The group’s leaders say they are convinced that Mr. Biden, who has overseen the most aggressive climate agenda of any president, cannot win against former President Donald J. Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a hoax.
“Joe Biden’s next climate legacy-defining act must be to pass the torch to a new nominee,” Aru Shiney-Ajay, the executive director the Sunrise Movement, said in a statement.
“Another Trump presidency would cause catastrophic and irreversible damage to our climate,” she said. “After speaking with young people around the country over the last few weeks, I’m concerned that Joe Biden isn’t positioned to mobilize young people and win in November.”
The Biden campaign underlined the president’s commitment to fighting global warming. “No president has and will fight harder to address the climate crisis than President Biden,” Seth Schuster, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. He said Mr. Biden was “proud to have passed the most significant climate legislation in American history during his first term, and will ensure we continue the essential work to save our planet by defeating climate-denier-in-chief Donald Trump this November.”
Sunrise is the first major environmental group to publicly urge Mr. Biden to abandon his presidential campaign. It follows a highly anticipated news conference that Mr. Biden held on Thursday night in which the president said he was determined to run for re-election. “And I think I’m the best qualified to win,” he said.