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President Joe Biden vowed again on Wednesday that he would not withdraw from the race.
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If he does, Vice President Kamala Harris will be his best replacement.
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Harris has both practical and political advantages.
Democrats would face a practical and political nightmare if President Joe Biden withdraws and they decide to push Vice President Kamala Harris to the sidelines instead of to the top of the ticket.
On Wednesday, Biden and Harris jointly told campaign officials they would press ahead despite mounting criticism following Biden’s disastrous debate, the Associated Press reported.
“I’m in. I’m the leader of the Democratic Party. Nobody’s pushing me out,” he said, according to AP.
No one, especially not Biden’s running mate, will now openly pressure Biden to give up.
Harris gets the money — probably.
Should Biden indeed drop out, the focus will quickly shift to Harris. She is by far the best positioned of Biden’s potential successors to take over. And more importantly, campaign finance experts say she would have the easiest path to the Biden campaign’s $240 million war chest.
While no one knows exactly what would happen to the millions if Biden were to leave office, Harris would likely gain control of the money — but only if she were to become the nominee.
“If Harris succeeds Biden as the presidential nominee, she will retain access to all campaign committee funds and can use them to advance her presidential candidacy,” Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider in an email.
That’s because she shares a campaign committee with Biden, Ghosh said. Given her initial involvement with the Biden money — and the presence of her name on FEC filings related to his candidacy — she’s likely the only one who can use the money without much trouble.
But the same rules wouldn’t apply if Harris remained a vice presidential candidate or even dropped out altogether.
Federal contribution limits limit candidate-to-candidate transfers to no more than $2,000 in any one election, Ghosh said. While the Biden campaign could spin the money into a political action committee if someone else were the nominee, there’s a catch: PACs are limited to $3,300 in any one election to any other candidate.
“In either case, there is no legal way for Biden to transfer the $90 million his campaign currently has available to a new candidate,” Ghosh told Business Insider.
In a massive return-to-sender effort, the Biden campaign could also refund donations and have donors redirect their money to the new candidate, campaign finance experts told NBC. Or, in yet another version of the future, the Biden campaign could transfer the funds to the national party.
All things considered, if Biden leaves office, it appears that Harris is the best solution when it comes to hard money.
But of course, money isn’t the only issue: While many heads are turning toward Harris, doubts about her viability as a candidate have long persisted.
Harris enjoys strong support within the core of the Democratic Party.
Pushing Harris aside could provoke a firestorm of criticism. The vice president has repeatedly said she supports Biden, but influential voices in the party are already rallying behind her. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement helped Biden win the state’s 2020 primary, has said he would want Harris if Biden withdraws.
“We need to do everything we can to strengthen her, whether that’s second or top of the list,” Clyburn said Tuesday on MSNBC.
In Washington, where things are always well-run, it would be impossible to ignore the first female vice president for a man, or the first black vice president for a white candidate.
Black voters remain the core of the modern Democratic Party. No group is a monolith, but none of Biden’s major challengers come close to matching Harris’s support in the black community. According to a recent Economist-YouGov poll, 66% of black voters have a favorable view of Harris. By comparison, just 47% of black voters have a favorable view of California Gov. Gavin Newsom of California; slightly fewer have a similar view of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
The same survey found that voters still don’t know enough about Whitmer to form an opinion of her, underscoring another potential headache. Harris is one of the best-known politicians in the country. Any potential replacement will likely have to introduce herself to the American people and on the national stage.
That doesn’t mean Harris has all the advantages. Her fame comes with the baggage of the White House. Republicans would likely give her the same attacks on the economy and immigration that they’ve used against Biden. Unlike a potential replacement outside the Beltway, Harris would struggle to show much favor with the president.
Republicans are already preparing for a potential Harris bid if she wins the nomination and the campaign cash. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee released a digital ad calling her the “enabler in chief” and blaming her for the chaos at the border.
Over ominous music, the ad asks, “Is this the man we want for president?” It seems the Democratic Party and its donors will have to answer that question, too.
Read the original article on Business Insider
