President Joe Biden’s historic decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race leaves Democrats scrambling to replace him with less than four months to go before Election Day.
What follows will be an unprecedented chain of events with Kamala Harris the cleaer favorite but by no means certain to become the party’s nominee.
The Democratic National Convention runs from August 19 to 22 in Chicago and Biden had been expected to formally accept the nomination there, having received 3,896 delegates during the party’s primary contest earlier this year.
More than 4,600 delegates and thousands of other party officials will now head to the city with the identity of the party’s standard bearer up in the air.
President Joe Biden announced on Sunday he would step aside and not seek reelection in the 2024 presidential race. He said it was in the best interest of the party and his country
The president made his stunning announcement in a letter addressed to his fellow Americanst.
He wrote it has been the greatest honor of his life to serve as president while throwing his support behind Harris.
‘While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,’ he wrote.
His announcement came just weeks after a disastrous debate performance raised questions over whether he was fit for a second term.
Some Democratic lawmakers called publicly for him to exit the race. Others kept their opinions behind closed doors.
In recent weeks voters have been split on the path forward. Several polls showed a majority of Democrats thought Biden should exit the race, but many said they would still vote for him if he stayed in.
Now that Biden has made the historic decision, here is what happens next:
What are the nominating rules?
The Democratic party does have rules in place which determine what happens should the president step aside before being formally nominated.
While Biden had the necessary delegates his formal nomination was set to take place during a virtual roll call before the convention. The latest guidance is that it would happen in the first two weeks of August, but not before August 1.
Because Biden exited the race before officially becoming the nominee the more than 3,900 pledged delegates get to cast their ballots in an open convention for whichever candidate they want.
Every alternative to Biden whose name had been floated prior to him dropping out of the race insisted they were backing Biden. It’s not clear who would jump in the race aside from Harris with his departure.
Delegates told DailyMail.com prior to his exit that they would be sticking with Biden. Only some were willing to speculate on an alternate option but many suggested it should be Harris, who Biden endorsed on Sunday.
If a candidate wins the majority of pledged delegates on the first ballot, they become the party nominee.
If no candidate gets a majority, then the nearly 740 so-called ‘superdelegates’, also known as automatic delegates, get to vote as well. They include a mix of party members and elected officials.
Voting continues until a candidate gets a majority of delegates.
Before Biden dropped out of the race, he expressed confidence in his second-in-command Harris. At the time he had insisted he was not exiting the race but said on July 11 that he ‘wouldn’t have picked her’ if he ‘didn’t think she was qualified to be president.’
President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on the Fourth of July
What happens to the money?
One of the biggest challenges for Democrats is how to raise a massive sum of cash big enough to take on Donald Trump in a short amount of time.
The Biden war chest would not necessarily flow to his replacement leaving a lot of money on the table.
In the second quarter of the year, the Biden team brought in a total of $264 million and finished June with $240 million cash on hand.
Federal candidates can make unlimited transfers of their funds to the national party, so Biden could leave all the money with the Democratic Party, which can then spend the money on the new nominee.
But the campaign cannot just transfer the money directly to the nominee, as there is a $2,000 limit per candidate per election. Rather than give the money directly to a campaign, it would have to be refunded to the original donors, who would then have to give it to the candidate.
The one person who would not face the same hurdles as a replacement nominee is Harris.
Campaign finance law allows her to share the campaign committee with Biden because the president and vice president run together as one ticket, so her name is already authorized.
