Senator Peter Welch of Vermont has become the first sitting Democratic senator to call for President Joe Biden to step out of the November presidential election.

He's the latest in a growing chorus of Democrats seeking to move on to another candidate, but the first member of the upper chamber of Congress to do so.

"I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not," Welch said in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post Wednesday night. "For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race."

Welch cited recent polling analysis from the Cook Political Report which found that six battleground states have shifted toward Trump after Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Some, like Minnesota and New Hampshire, are still expected to lean Democratic, while Nevada, Arizona and Georgia have moved from "Toss up" to "Lean Republican."

The junior Senator from Vermont, Welch joins several House Democrats in calling for Biden to step aside. However, discontent is bubbling throughout the halls of Congress — even close allies, like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi have offered less supportive stances than even one week ago.

“It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short,” Pelosi said when asked on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" if Biden had her support. When pressed, she added that she wants Biden "to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is."

Also on Wednesday, Axios reported that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is increasingly open to shifting Biden off of the presidential ticket, and Fox News reported that Senate Democrats are sharing increasing concerns with Biden officials.

While many Democrats have continued to offer full-throated support, the calls to drop out have started to come from inside the house. An opinion piece by Democratic donor and mega-fundraiser George Clooney, published in The New York Times on Wednesday, also urged Biden to step aside. 

Clooney recently hosted a fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles, helping the Biden-Harris campaign draw in a record $30 million.

But, nearly two weeks after the debate, Clooney’s support has shifted.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney said.

While Biden has remained defiant in the face of increasing calls to exit the race, Trump has become emboldened, seeking to strike the president’s most likely successor. His most recent rally saw him attacking Democratic leadership, and introducing a new line of attack on Vice President Kamala Harris, blaming her for both the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and for increased immigration along the border.

"Trump is a felon. He is a pathological liar. He is a menace. And he is sure to be emboldened by his activist Supreme Court, which granted him near total immunity," Welch said in his Washington Post essay. Trump, he added, "consistently put his own interests ahaed of the nation’s," leading to the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection and failed plan to overturn the 2020 election; should he be elected, an extremist right-wing agenda is sure to follow, Welch suggested.

"The good news is that President Biden has united the party and created a deep bench that can defeat Trump. Vice President Harris is a capable, proven leader, and we have other electable, young, energizing Democratic governors and senators in swing states," the senator wrote. "We have asked President Biden to do so much for so many for so long. It has required unmatched selflessness and courage. We need him to put us first, as he has done before. I urge him to do it now."