Jonathan Martin writes:

Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.

After a round of introductory questions confirming each delegate was still planning on going to Chicago and asking if they had served as delegate before, the Biden aide making the calls got to the point, the Democratic activists recalled to me in separate interviews.

One of the delegates said the line of questioning turned with an inquiry along the lines of, “Do you understand what being a pledged delegate means?” before the aide asked: “Do you have any potential disagreements with the president?”

Another delegate said the bottom-line question was even more direct. “‘Is there any reason you couldn’t or wouldn’t support the president at the convention?’” the delegate recalled the aide asking.

The third delegate said the version he received was more open-ended: “’Do you have any concerns?’”

The delegates were thunderstruck at the calls. One of them initially wondered if it was some sort of prank until double-checking the caller ID and seeing Delaware’s area code, 302. After hanging up, each of them reached out to other convention delegates they knew and found these individuals also received the calls.

The three delegates I spoke to, all long-standing veterans of Democratic campaigns, said they had the same initial reaction after hanging up with the Biden aide: Was this an attempt by the president’s campaign to potentially block or replace disloyal pledged delegates? [Continue reading…]