US President Joe Biden’s unsuccessful debate performance prompted some Democrats to question whether he should be replaced on the ballot ahead of November, according to The Irish Examiner.
However, there is no evidence that Biden is ready to end his campaign. Meanwhile, it will be virtually impossible for the Democrats to replace him unless he decides to step aside. That is impossible, because every state has already held a presidential primary. Democratic rules require that the delegates Biden has secured still back him at the party’s upcoming national convention.
Furthermore, Biden declared that he had no plans to leave the race. He told his supporters in Atlanta shortly after leaving the debate stage:
Let’s keep going.
A spokeswoman for Biden’s campaign team, Lauren Hitt, made it even clearer on Friday.
“Of course he’s not dropping out.”
The congresses and their rules are controlled by the political parties. The Democratic National Committee could meet before the convention opens on 19 August and change the order of proceedings.
However, this is unlikely as long as Joe Biden wants to continue to seek re-election. The current rules state, “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris is Biden’s running mate. However, that doesn’t mean she can replace him at the top of the ticket by default. Nor can Biden decree that she will replace him if he suddenly decides to drop out of the race.
The Democratic Party’s national convention is being held in Chicago. The party announced it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before the in-person proceedings began. An exact date for the roll call is not scheduled yet.
However, if Biden decides to abandon his re-election campaign, Harris would likely join other leading Democratic candidates seeking to replace him. This would possibly create a scenario in which she and others end up lobbying individual state delegations at the convention to win their support.
This has not happened to Democrats since 1960 when John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson fought for votes during the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles.
Who could replace Biden?
In addition to the vice president, Joe Biden was endorsed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Illinois Gov. Jay Robert “J. B.” Pritzker, and California Rep. Ro Khanna.
Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reportedly may also try their luck in the campaign.
If Biden suddenly drops out of the race, conservative groups have speculated that they would file lawsuits across the country, potentially calling into question the legitimacy of the Democratic candidate’s name on ballots.
However, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., stated that courts had consistently avoided political primaries. As long as parties do not commit anything that conflicts with other constitutional rights, such as voter suppression motivated by race, courts will keep avoiding interfering with the process.
This is very clear constitutionally, that this is in the party’s purview. The business of nominating someone to represent a political party is the business of the political party.
