Now, President Joe Biden has confirmed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee, after announcing that he will not seek re-election.
But it doesn’t depend on him, although Biden’s endorsement is the latest of several very strong factors leaning Harris’ way.
Although Biden won nearly all of the delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and is the party’s presumptive nominee, he is stepping aside and relinquishing that title, and those delegates have no direct power to officially choose who will be the nominee.
That’s because convention delegates, the people who actually choose the Democratic Party nominee, are not bound by any law or party rules to support the candidate they’re going to endorse. They should only “reflect honestly the sentiments of those who elected them.”
Follow live updates on Biden’s withdrawal
Biden can, and likely will, have a lot of leverage over the delegates who are still preparing to nominate him. However, these representatives are free to make their own decisions in terms of whether they support Harris or not, and whether they want to be the party’s vice presidential candidate.
So far, a number of prominent representatives and state party chairs and organizations are jumping to get behind Harris. Minnesota Democratic Party Chairman Ken Martin told NBC News that he has spoken with several other state party chairs who have agreed to go after Harris.
“Everybody I’ve talked to right now agrees that we need to come together quickly,” Martin said. “The idea of turning the conversation inside out for four weeks is not something I’m particularly excited about. The sooner we can unite our party behind the ticket, the sooner we can implement this campaign.”
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said Saturday night that the party’s executive committee endorsed the vice president. Asked what he hopes are the next steps for the party, Buckley wrote in a text message: “Ultimately, it’s up to the delegates.”
At a conference of 50 state party chairs Saturday night, a number of party leaders endorsed Harris and agreed to “move forward in being open with our support for the vice president,” but there was no official call or statement. support.
Democratic Representative Bill Owen of Tennessee He told The New York Times that all state representatives supported Harris On a conference call, as similar conversations are starting across the country.
Meanwhile, it is not clear when exactly the Democrats will meet to choose their candidates.
Ohio planned to officially nominate Biden during a virtual vote in the first week of August to avoid a potential legal challenge surrounding the deadline to get on the ballot. But if Democratic delegates aren’t ready to ratify his nomination so quickly, the party may have to change course now.
This process will be managed by the Democratic National Convention rules committeeThe organization, which has about 200 members and is run by Leah Daughtry, a longtime DNC insider and rules expert, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
In a statement, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison did not directly say what would happen next, but said an answer would come soon.
“Soon, the American people will hear from the Democratic Party about the next steps and the way forward in the nomination process,” he said.
Democrats seeking to replace Biden have been divided for weeks between a camp that favors an open convention with multiple candidates and those that want to see a less disruptive path to a smooth transition to Harris.
Any other candidate should act soon. To win a convention, candidates need a petition signed by at least 300 convention delegates and must sign the document themselves, so no draft can be done on behalf of someone else without their express approval.
To ensure that a delegation is not trying to establish a favorite, a petition cannot include more than 50 delegates from a state, and delegates can sign only one nominating petition.
Why Harris starts up front
Even in an open nomination process, Harris has structural advantages that give him a significant advantage over potential Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination as he tries to unify the party behind him and makes quiet calls to open the process to more candidates. .
The main ones stem directly from his position as vice president: He already has the primary national vetting of someone who has both run for president, been picked to work the ticket, and won the election to be Biden’s appointed replacement if something happened to him. he worked alongside the president and was involved in the administration’s handling of major domestic and international issues, and spent four years as a target for Republicans and the news media.
That’s four years of experience that no other potential candidate has. And he would represent the most continuity with the Biden campaign and his team because he was part of that campaign as well.
“Because it’s so late in the game … he’s going to be in a very strong position,” Elaine Kamarck told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on a recent episode of “The Chuck Toddcast.”
Kamarck, a longtime DNC member who has written a book about party nominating rules, added: “He’s been there for four years and nobody else has time to prepare. He can answer the question about the weapons we sent to Ukraine. I mean, there are all these things that, frankly, governors don’t deal with, and presidents do.
A second advantage is that Harris is the only candidate with a A direct line to the Biden campaign’s bank account, ended June with almost $96 million in the bank. That’s because his name appears alongside Biden’s on all relevant legal forms. Hours after Biden resigned Sunday, the committee filed paperwork to change its name to “Harris for President.”
“Biden and Harris share a campaign committee,” said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Law Center and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
Potter noted that this situation had never arisen before and could be legally tested, but he thought it was clear. “The vice president and his running mate may continue to use available campaign funds for the general election if they are on the Democratic ticket as presidential or vice presidential nominees,” he said.
The Biden campaign shared a similar message with donors in a phone call immediately after the June debate. This was previously reported by NBC News.
Other candidates will likely be able to get Biden’s money, especially since he can campaign donate up to to national or state party organizations as they please. (That is, the Biden campaign could move all of its cash to the DNC.) But no other candidate is likely to gain direct control of the Biden-Harris war chest they’ve been building for years — at least not without a potential legal fight. .
A third benefit for Harris is that Democrats say it would be politically dangerous for another candidate, especially a white man, to try to outrun the potential first woman and first Asian American president in American history.
Democrats of color, such as members of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, have already made it clear that they view Biden as the only legitimate successor to Harris should he drop out.
Representatives Gregory Meeks, DN.Y. and Stephen Horsford, D-Nev.az, said in a statement, “The Congressional Black Caucus PAC joins President Biden in fully supporting Kamala Harris as our party’s nominee.” “He will do a great job as president of the United States.”
And NBC News reported that CBC veteran Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, a longtime member of the House of Representatives and a key Biden supporter in 2020 and beyond, is set to endorse Harris for president.
Fourth, even before Biden stepped aside, Harris began to emerge as the consensus choice among the party’s progressive and more moderate wings.
While Harris was not a favorite of the left during the 2020 Democratic primary, progressives warmed to him — and they also have no credible alternative candidates waiting in the wings. (Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is older than Biden.) And progressives prefer Harris to more moderate alternatives. It was talked about before Biden lefteg Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., even endorsed Harris on MSNBC Saturday, saying she was comfortable with the idea of Biden stepping aside because Harris was “willing to step up to unify the party.”
And finally, for a party that has made democracy a central pillar of its work, Harris claims stronger democratic legitimacy than any other potential candidate.
After all, most Americans have already voted for him as vice president in 2020, although many were clearly looking at the names of Biden and Trump on the tickets. No other potential candidate can make such a claim.
“Remember, 80 million people voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 because they knew Kamala Harris would be willing to step up if needed,” Warren added.
With the November election just five months away, even some Democrats who might favor an alternative candidate say nominating Harris strikes the right balance between replacing his own candidate without rejecting Biden’s achievements and legacy, which has kept him popular with Democrats.
And Biden’s allies say passing the torch to his hand-picked history-making successor would be a powerful final act of public service for him and a common thread among anxious Democratic voters.
With Biden and his campaign actively supporting Harris, it will be difficult to find endorsement openings for potential alternatives.
“We are honored to join the President in supporting Vice President Harris and will do everything we can to support him,” Bill and Hillary Clinton said in a statement. “Now is the time to support Kamala Harris and fight with everything we have to elect her. America’s future depends on it.”