Panicked Democrats may be ready to fire the president Joe Biden to the side. But they need him to make the first move.
Within minutes of Biden’s poor debate performance on CNN ending, the network’s commentators were openly discussing the possibility of replacing Biden on the ticket.
For apoplectic Democrats, the good news is that there is a way to do this before November.
While the party does formally have a system in place to nominate a new candidate during the party congress, in case a candidate declines a nomination, the whole process is a rickety one that hasn’t been considered in decades.
There is no mechanism by which other party leaders can toss Biden off the ticket, under Democratic National Committee rules. Instead, if someone in the party wants to replace him, it would be by opening the nomination process on the convention floor.
Biden won about 95 percent of the nearly 4,000 delegates in this year’s primaries — those who pledged, but did not commit, to supporting Biden.
That means there’s no legal requirement that they vote for Biden during the roll call. But Biden’s campaign has played a role in picking these delegates at state conventions across the country — and at least half of them would have to reject him to deny him the nomination.
But if Biden agreed to reject his party’s nomination, it would set in motion an open and unpredictable process to choose his replacement.
Other names – from Vice President Kamala Harris to governors. Gavin NewsomGretchen Whitmer and J.B. Pritzker, among many others — could be nominated. The candidates, who could span the geographic, ideological and generational wings of the Democratic Party, would be working to convince thousands of Democratic delegates to support them on the first ballot.
The promised delegates are not the only ones who have a say. The Democratic Party has stripped “superdelegates” — elected officials and party leaders who can vote for whomever they want — of most of their power since the controversial 2016 primaries. These superdelegates would be free to vote if no candidate received a majority of delegates on the first ballot. An open, contested convention would give more than 700 party insiders an important role in choosing the new candidate.
Biden’s wishes could also be hugely important. He could try to influence the process by endorsing Harris, his vice president. And she would have an argument in her favor, since she’s already on the ticket.
But if such a scenario were to play out, Biden and Harris would have to convince them. Biden’s delegates won’t automatically go to her, but an endorsement from Biden could be enough. But there’s no guarantee, and Harris’s poor poll numbers could make some Democrats hesitate.
Even if Harris were to win the nomination, she would still need her own vice presidential candidate. Moreover, a battle would still arise among the party’s future stars to become her running mate.
Any of the Democratic rising stars would be a possibility, though Newsom would be particularly unlikely. Unless either party changes their hometown, a Harris-Newsom ticket would be ineligible for California’s 54 electoral votes — and without them, there’s no realistic path to a Democratic victory.
From the moment he announced he would seek a second term, Biden and his team have been pushing for him to run for re-election. And Biden won every primary and caucus — capturing more than 85 percent of the total vote — with the exception of distant American Samoa.
But the immense pressure of a poor debate performance – and further drops in the polls – could change all that.
If Biden drops out, the clock is ticking. Although the Democratic Convention isn’t until mid-August, the DNC is moving ahead with the nomination process.
Ohio law requires the party’s nominees to be determined by August 7, and the DNC has decided to suspend the convention’s traditional roll call to ensure its nominee gets on the ballot there.
That deadline is just 40 days away.
