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Following President Biden’s halting debate performance against former president Donald Trump on Thursday, Democrats found themselves asking an uncomfortable question: Is it too late to replace him on the ticket?
The simple answer is no — but to do so, it’s likely that he would first have to agree to step aside. There was no indication on Friday that he was planning to do so, though some Democratic strategists and officeholders have quietly said it’s a conversation the party will have to have.
If he does, it’s actually quite easy, procedurally, for delegates at the Democratic National Convention to vote for someone else when they convene in Chicago starting Aug. 19.
Through Biden’s primary and caucus victories this year, Biden has amassed support from the vast majority of delegates who will attend the convention this summer — 3,894 of 3,937 committed so far, according to an Associated Press tally. Those delegates would be free to vote for a different candidate if Biden withdraws.
But the political jockeying for a new candidate could take the party down a messy and uncharted road exposing stark ideological differences that Biden’s candidacy has kept at bay.
Democrats would face what’s known as an “open convention” — an old-fashioned scenario in which the presidential nominee is chosen on the fly, historically with behind-the-scenes negotiations and bargaining. With the advent of the modern primary system, it has been decades since such a convention has occurred. And although Vice President Harris would likely be presumed the front-runner for the nomination, delegates would be under no obligation to select her.
Experts say a Biden withdrawal could set off a scramble.
“Biden represents a compromise holding together the broad and potentially fractured coalition of the Democratic Party,” said Hans Noel, a political science professor at Georgetown University. “Any attempt to find a replacement will bring those fractures to the fore. Finding another candidate that everyone is comfortable with might be difficult.”
Still, the Democrats have a bench of up-and-comers who are expected to consider running in 2028, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Georgia Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, among others.
The DNC rule book makes no mention of such an open-convention scenario, offering only this guidance to delegates: “All delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, said changing nominees would be straightforward from a legal perspective because there is no official nominee yet and no ballots have been printed. But the political jockeying for a new candidate would likely be a “free for all.”
That’s how political conventions historically were. Party-selected delegates would go into the conventions uncommitted and decide there on a presidential nominee. But in March 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to run for reelection and the Democratic convention that August devolved into chaos amid protests over the Vietnam War.
After that, the party changed the rules to give power to voters to choose their nominee through the primary process. Delegates to the convention were expected to support the candidate who won their state’s primary.
If Democrats do head toward an open convention, a significant challenge will be settling on a nominee before state ballot deadlines come around. It’s unlikely that a nominee would get a majority of delegate votes in a first ballot, given the likelihood of a half-dozen contenders or more. That opens up the possibility of a protracted convention and days and days of balloting before the outcome is decided.
In an extreme scenario, early voting, which in some states begins in September, could be underway while Democrats are still figuring out who their choice is.
Additionally, a Biden replacement would start with a disadvantage both financially and organizationally. Biden cannot simply transfer his campaign cash to a replacement. He can transfer it to a super PAC, but any candidate who takes over for him would have to start raising money quickly.
Elaine Kamarck, an expert on political primaries who has also served as a Democratic delegate multiple times, noted in an interview that there is a scenario, albeit unlikely, in which Biden refuses to step aside but a challenger emerges to try to convince his delegates to spurn him.
“Someone would have to make an argument that this would be terrible, it’s the wrong thing to do, he’s too old, whatever,” she said. “Which frankly is why no one would probably do it. It would be extremely destructive. You’d have to take him head on.”
Democrats are working on a compressed timeline. The DNC agreed to hold a virtual roll call to nominate Biden ahead of the convention to head off an Ohio law that requires a nominee to be selected by Aug. 7 — 90 days before the election — to qualify to appear on the state ballot. However, the party could reverse course because the Ohio legislature passed a law that relaxed that deadline to ensure Biden’s place on the ballot. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/could-biden-be-replaced-as-the-2024-democratic-nominee/ar-BB1p4bXp)
