How Dems could still replace Biden as candidate after disastrous debate performance
President Biden’s weak debate performance has has triggered turmoil within the Democratic Party as some question whether the 81-year-old should be replaced on the ballot.
Biden’s raspy and halting attempts to confront former President Donald Trump, 78, on Thursday night sparked a fresh round of calls for the Democrat to consider stepping aside as the party’s nominee — barely four months out from the election.
While Biden allies have insisted he has no plans to back down and end his campaign, questions have been mounting over whether Democrats could actually force him out.
So, can the president be replaced as the Democratic candidate so close to the November polls and, if so, how?
The Democratic National Committee’s current rules make it nearly impossible to replace a nominee unless they choose to step aside.
Given that every state has already held its presidential primary, the rules strongly suggests that the delegates Biden won pledge to support him at the party’s upcoming national convention — unless, of course, he tells them he’s leaving the race.
“Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them,” the rules read.
Since the rules have no legal bearing on the delegates, they don’t necessarily have to vote for the president. But straying from their promises could bring them negative consequences within the party, so they are likely to stay in line.
Another wrinkle: While Biden is expected to formally accept renomination Aug. 22 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he will actually be crowned in a virtual roll call sometime before Aug. 7, the deadline for him to make the general election ballot in the battleground state of Ohio.
That means that the window of opportunity to convince Biden to step aside after Thursday night is narrower than it seems.
If Biden abruptly agreed to decline the nomination, the party could open a rule book that hasn’t been used in decades.
The party’s rules include a provision to replace a nominee if there’s a vacancy, which is intended to be used in rare incidents such as a death or incapacitation.
To fill the vacancy, the committee’s chair would have to call a special meeting with the full DNC to vote on new presidential and vice presidential nominees.
Given it needs to be a majority vote, that process could prove to be rocky given the number of Democratic candidates who have been floated as potential replacement.
While Vice President Kamala Harris is Biden’s running mate, it doesn’t mean he can declare that she will be his replacement at the top of the ticket.
The veep would have to jockey with other big Democratic names — such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
That could potentially create a scenario where Harris and others end up lobbying individual state delegations at the convention for their support — a scenario that hasn’t taken place since John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson maneuvered for votes at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.
Still, if Biden did abandon his campaign, conservative groups have already suggested they’ll file lawsuits questioning the legality of the new Democratic candidate’s name on the ballot.
Experts argue, though, that courts have consistently stayed out of political primaries in the past as long as the parties running them weren’t doing anything that would contradict other constitutional rights, such as voter suppression based on race.
Follow the latest on Trump and Biden’s 2024 debate:
- Biden’s candidacy in doubt after weak, frozen debate performance against Trump leaves Dems in ‘aggressive panic’
- Kamala Harris says Biden had ‘slow start’ but ‘strong finish’ in debate after Anderson Cooper pressed her on Dem ‘panic’
- Is Biden sick? Prez’s voice sounds raspy during debate against Trump
- We just witnessed the end of Joe Biden’s presidency
“This is very clear constitutionally that this is in the party’s purview,” Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told the Associated Press prior to the debate.
“The business of nominating someone to represent a political party is the business of the political party.”
Biden, for his part, has already insisted he has no plans to step aside, telling supporters in Atlanta just moments after leaving the debate stage, “Let’s keep going.”
And a Biden campaign spokesperson was even more adamant on Friday: “Of course he’s not dropping out.”
With Post wires
