Combined photo of 5 Democratic leaders that could replace Mr Biden as the party’s nominee. From left ( Vice President Kamala Harris , California Gov. Gavin Newsom , Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer , Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg , Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Now that President Joe Biden has decided not to run for reelection, Democrats have an unprecedented challenge, given the traditional primary season has long since ended.
Biden on Sunday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democrats’ nominee this fall, but he can’t automatically make her the candidate.
As CNN first reported back in February, individual delegates will now select the party’s nominee on the convention floor in Chicago — or, potentially, during a virtual roll call tentatively scheduled for early August.
These delegates aren’t just pledged to vote for Biden; they’re also approved by his campaign. So while a majority of convention delegates could decide to pick a new nominee, doing so would require massive defections from the president’s own supporters.
Settling on a replacement could be divisive and ugly. It would be up to the delegates to decide, in a series of votes after frantic lobbying, who to pick.
On the Democratic side, there is also another group to consider: the “superdelegates,” a group of about 700 senior party leaders and elected officials who are automatically delegates to the convention based on their position. Under normal party rules, they can’t vote on the first ballot if they could swing the nomination, but they’re free to vote on subsequent ballots. However, it isn’t exactly clear how those rules would be applied in the unprecedented event that Biden were to leave the race at this point.
The number of superdelegates can also shift if one dies or resigns. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the longtime Texas congresswoman, died July 19, reducing the number of superdelegates by one.
After saying US President Joe Biden “did the right thing” by endorsing Kamala Harris as presidential nominee, campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond unleashed anger at big donors, saying they had “created a self-fulfilling prophecy” by declining to give money to support Joe Biden after his disastrous debate performance.
“You can’t win without money, and then they were going to point the finger at the candidate. They were going to blame it on Biden,” Richmond said. “For a president that has accomplished so much, it was a no-win situation.”
One source involved in the campaign’s fundraising arm breathed a sigh of relief following the announcement Sunday that President Joe Biden would no longer seek reelection.
In the minutes since Biden posted his decision on social media platform X, the source said, the response from donors has been “uniformly positive.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised President Joe Biden for his decades of service in a statement after the president announced he would not be seeking reelection.
Jeffries did not mention Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden subsequently endorsed, in the brief statement.
“President Joe Biden is one of the most accomplished and consequential leaders in American history. In less than one term, he rescued the nation from a once-in-a-century pandemic, brought the economy roaring back from the brink of recession, enacted consequential legislation for everyday Americans and saved our democracy by defeating the Insurrectionist-in-Chief,” Jeffries said.
GOP Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the Senate Republican campaign arm, called on President Joe Biden to resign from the presidency after he announced he wouldn’t be seeking reelection Sunday.
“If Joe Biden is no longer capable of running for re-election, he is no longer capable of serving as President,” said Daines in a social media post. “Being President is the hardest job in the world, and I no longer have confidence that Joe Biden can effectively execute his duties as Commander-in-Chief.”
“It is out of concern for our country’s national security that I am formally calling on President Biden to resign from office.”
Former President Barack Obama expressed his support of President Joe Biden after he exited the 2024 presidential race, describing him as “a patriot of the highest order.”
“I know Joe has never backed down from a fight,” reads a statement from the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama. “For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of country — and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.”
An adviser said Obama is taking the same approach as he did in the 2020 Democratic primary, watching closely with the intent of being able to unify the party when a nominee is chosen – whether it is Harris or someone else.
CNN/ The Hill
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