EL Dems Respond to Biden Candidacy, Withdrawal
When President Joe Biden announced on Sunday afternoon that he was withdrawing from the 2024 Presidential Election, ELi was preparing a story highlighting the feelings some East Lansing Democrats had about a then hypothetical withdrawal as Biden faced mounting pressure from prominent Democrats.
Many Democrats we spoke with before Sunday’s announcement were still in Biden’s corner.
“I am extremely supportive of our nominee,” said 75th District House Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou, last week, before Biden’s announcement. “I think that the president has accomplished many important things as president and I am fully supportive of all of his policies and what he wants to accomplish in the future.”

Following Biden’s announcement, Tsernoglou signaled support for Vice President Kamala Harris, posting “I’m with her” and a photo of Harris to her X (formerly Twitter) account.
Phillip Handrike, a candidate for East Lansing’s fourth precinct to the Ingham Democratic Convention, was also firmly behind the president before his announcement.
“When I look at what Joe Biden has accomplished in his first term,” he said, “it’s mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling. We were literally dying by the thousands every day. Trump, to his credit, did the fast track in getting the vaccines. But he did not know how to use the federal government efficiently. Biden comes in and he knows how to do that. From my point-of-view, it was nothing short of a miracle.
“To my mind, it’s just a long list of accomplishments and he’s just not getting credit for that. All you see on television is that he walked somewhere and he walked slow. And now you’ve got the great and the good in the Democratic Party going, somehow, we didn’t notice that he was in decline. They’re pushing for him to step back. Polls are bad.
“He’s done a tremendous job and all the media can talk about is that he’s 81 years old.”
Jeff Hank, the chairperson of the East Lansing Democratic Club, making it clear he was sharing only his personal beliefs and not those of his organization, was committed to the president when ELi spoke to him on Saturday, but did have some worries.
“I support President Biden,” he said. “I am concerned about him, but he’s the nominee. He’s the one who went through the democratic process to become the nominee and I think generally, you need to support your team and you need to support your leaders. Unless he makes the decision to get out, I think the Democratic Party, particularly the elites of the dem party, need to back him and need to quit backstabbing him because all they’re doing is destroying morale and weakening their own candidate. That’s the complete opposite to how the Republicans act. They’ve supported Trump through thick and thin and the Democrats don’t seem to be able to do that. You don’t bail on someone because they’re of old age. I think it’s obvious that he’s been this way for a while and people shouldn’t be surprised or act surprised. Unless he chooses to back out, you should back him.”
When asked for comment the day before Biden dropped out, Councilmember Erik Altmann spoke with suspicion about the pressure the president was facing to withdraw.
“I see a kind of soft coup attempt, like January 6 without the violence.” he said to ELi. “There are influential people and constituencies that don’t like Biden or his policies and want to overturn a national presidential primary. They’re getting help from nervous Democrats living in a West Wing fantasy world where there is some alternative to the Biden/Harris ticket. Biden has to stay in, and I hope everyone who cares about their vote and about democracy does whatever they can to support him.
“There’s also the racism and sexism associated with people refusing to recognize that we have a highly competent and experienced vice president and vice presidential candidate, in case the president really does have an infirmity. It’s infuriating. We’re Democrats. We’re better than this.”

When asked for comment after the announcement, Altmann succinctly responded with, “The coup is done. No time to be outraged. Looking forward to President Harris.”
Two other East Lansing candidates for the Ingham Democratic Convention, Joshua Vermaas of the ninth precinct and Mary Pollock of the fourth, felt Biden should step down for the good of their party and country, telling ELi this the day before Biden removed himself from the race.
“I think it was already pretty clear if you were paying attention during the primaries that he wasn’t as strong of a campaigner as he was four years ago,” Vermaas said. “I know there were various reasons why people could vote uncommitted, but that’s what I did based on, look, the odds of him actually making it through being a successful presidential candidate and being a successful president at the age of 82, did not seem very high to me back in February.”
“He should bow out considering his mental acuity situation,” Pollock said. “The Democratic Party apparently has procedures in place if the nominee bows out. He needs to make that decision, otherwise we’re going to go into this with more difficulties than burdens for all the Democratic candidates. It’s time for him to retire. It’s a difficult decision for many people, especially in a position of power and privilege, to give it all up.”
In ELi’s conversation with Pollock before the announcement was made, she had already issued support for a potential ticket with Harris at the top.
“The natural one [to replace Biden as presidential candidate] would be Kamala and I’d love to have a female running for president. I’d love to have a confident female like Kamala to be president. I think that’s great. I commented on Facebook right after the debate, ‘Kamala, call Gretchen [Whitmer] for a two female ticket.’”
When news about Biden’s decision became public, conversation switched to one of admiration for the commander-in-chief.
“When I heard that, I teared up,” Handrike said in a follow-up conversation after the news came. “Biden has been such a fantastic president and the fact that he would make that kind of decision for my mind just seals my opinion for what kind of man he is and what kind of president he’s been.”
“I fully support the president and his decision [to withdraw],” said Jane Bidwell, East Lansing’s lone third precinct candidate for the Ingham County Democratic Convention. “I actually met President Biden before he was President Biden, when he was a senator and I lived on the east coast. I know he’s a patriot and he’s honorable and he’s honest and I feel very sad for him that he’s finding that he needs to step down as a candidate. As I speak with you, I have a call list I’m trying to get through to get out the vote…we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing to get democrats elected up and down the ballot.”
East Lansing City Councilmember and former member of the Michigan House of Representatives Mark Meadows felt some compassion for Biden when he spoke to ELi after Biden’s announcement
“As an older person myself,” he said, “what I did see there was a pretty significant diminishment over the past four years. To me, that should have indicated to him that people weren’t telling him to drop out because they thought he was just a terrible president or anything like that. They were letting him know in the interest of the nation that it was time. On the other hand, you’ve got to look at the entire four years and the fact it’s been very successful. Part of that success was that he did a great job appointing people to run departments. We haven’t seen any issue involving that.”