Despite weeks of rumors, President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential election last weekend was a shock to most political observers. And while some questions were answered on Sunday — will he really do it? (Yes.) Will he endorse Vice President Kamala Harris? (Also yes.) — many other questions still remain. Given that we have no precedent for this in the modern era, it’s understandable if you’re a little confused right now. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions circulating right now, with the help of some expert sources, so you can decide your direction as you step into a new political frontier.
Is Kamala Harris now the Democratic nominee for president?
No — at least not yet. It’s true that Biden endorsed Harris, his Campaign funds have been transferred For your campaign, A huge wave of Democratic lawmakers And top party leaders have formally endorsed his candidature, And A Majority of representatives of the Democratic Party have said they will support her. But until those delegates vote to make her the nominee, she will remain just a candidate. She is not even a “presumptive nominee,” as Biden was (and as his campaign has said). He was moved to make the call): This term is used to describe a candidate who has won the support of a majority of delegates through primary elections and thus it is expected that he will become the party’s candidate at the convention, provided those delegates honor their pledged votes.
Wait, didn’t the delegates already commit to Biden?
Through the primary elections, Biden won the support of a majority of delegates. Before dropping out of the election, 3,886 representatives had pledged to support Biden should he become the nominee (almost all of the 3,949 potentially committed delegates). Since the delegates who say they will support Harris were not selected to do so through a primary election, they are free to vote for whomever they want, even if they have informally pledged to support Harris. This is different from a The so-called “faithless voter” Someone who promises to vote for a particular candidate and has the opportunity to do so, but votes for someone else. Since Biden is no longer in the fray, he will not be considered a traitor.
Also noteworthy is the fact that, unlike the Republican Party, where delegates are “tied” to a candidate, Democratic Party Rules Simply say that a delegate must “fully reflect the sentiments of the people who elected them.” Kaitlin Jewett, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, said that language means that, technically, delegates could always vote for someone other than Biden.
And now that Biden is out, those electors have even more power to choose a new nominee, especially since there wasn’t a competitive primary process.”[Delegates must] “It reflects the sentiments of the people who elected them,” [but] That’s not what happened to begin with,” Jewett said. “These delegates have no instructions from voters through the primaries that they’re ignoring.” In other words, it’s not as if voters chose Biden over Harris in this year’s primaries (as they did in 2020). If that were the case, it would be too risky for delegates to turn around and vote for a candidate who voters rejected. Instead, Biden was unopposed by any serious candidate in the primaries, so delegates now supporting Harris would arguably not violate the rules. (You could also argue that this would most likely respect the rules, since Biden — whom voters chose — had endorsed Harris, and she was on the ticket as his running mate.)
As of 2:09 p.m. Eastern Time on July 23, 3,004 delegates He said he now plans to support Harris — far more than the 1,976 vote threshold needed to secure the nomination.
So does this mean the Democrats will confirm their nominee at the Democratic National Convention next month?
Though they won’t gather in person until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22, DNC officials indicated on Monday night The party plans to move forward with a virtual roll call vote to confirm its nominee no later than August 1 and no later than August 7. While this move is clearly beneficial for party officials to provide certainty and hopefully avoid chaos at the convention, the plan to hold a virtual vote was actually put in place before Biden dropped out. It was originally planned in an effort to avoid running up against state deadlines for a nominee’s name to appear on the ballot in November.
This concern initially arose because the deadline for a party in Ohio to certify its presidential nominee was August 7 (90 days before Election Day). First Democratic Convention. In May, Ohio lawmakers passed a law That moved the deadline to 65 days before Election Day, which this year falls on Sept. 1, well after the DNC. However, the law won’t go into effect until Sept. 1, meaning this year’s deadlines fall in a period where, technically, the new law isn’t in effect yet. Rick Hasen, a law professor and election law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, said there’s no reason to think Ohio won’t honor a later deadline, but that gray period has left some Democratic Party leaders skeptical about getting nominations out early. The same applies to some other states whose deadlines fall anytime during convention week, including Washington state, where the deadline for parties to send in their nominee to appear on the ballot is Aug. 20, the second day of the convention.
Some critics claimed the D.N.C. was using concerns over deadlines to access the ballot as an excuse to speed up the enrollment process to safeguard his position amid growing pressure on Biden to step down. But now that he’s actually Is According to Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, moving forward with a virtual roll call once he’s out of office would help prevent similar questions about ballot access for Harris or any other candidate. “This is clearly a deadline that Democrats don’t want to miss,” Muller said. “The plan is to get this all resolved in the next couple of weeks. I think that would be the most straightforward approach.”
What about lawsuits? Will there be any legal challenges to all of this?
Even before Biden withdrew from the race, conservative activists had threatened legal lawsuits challenging Democrats’ ability to “replace” Biden on state ballots, but experts say Biden’s withdrawal was safe before it became an issue. Nothing in the process is likely to attract a challenge, according to Hasen and Mueller. except As for the fact that the Biden campaign shifted its funds to the Harris campaign because Harris’ name was on the same ticket, the rules around this are a little unclear, and both experts told me they wouldn’t be surprised if a Republican campaign or group decides to bring a legal challenge around this. However, Considering how slow the Federal Election Commission has been to deliberate On these types of issues, it’s unlikely to have any significant impact on the race at this point.
OK, but it’s surely got to be Harris, right?
Surely by now you know that there’s no such thing as “certainty” in 2024 electoral politics. Another candidate could still put their name forward, and delegates are free to vote for whomever they want, so nothing is certain until the vote takes place (virtual or in person). However, given the quick and widespread support Harris has already garnered from committed delegates and fellow Democrats — including most of the names that had been thrown around as potential challengers for the vice president, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer — she and her campaign are feeling pretty confident so far.
This is all uncharted territory, and the story is developing at a rapid pace. (It’s only been 48 hours since Biden was out!) DNC officials plan to move forward on this matter. We will meet virtually on Wednesday to discuss the next steps in the nomination process, and we should get more clarity in the next week or so about who the nominee will be and how the Democratic Party plans to move forward. Until then, all average voters can do is sit back, grab some popcorn (and maybe coconut water?) and see what happens next.
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