President Joe Biden’s performance in the first debate on Thursday has prompted fresh criticism from Democrats and sparked public and private speculation about whether he should remain at the top of the shortlist.
“He seemed shocked by how he came out at the beginning of the debate, the sound of his voice. He seemed a little confused,” David Axelrod, a former White House and campaign official for former President Barack Obama, told CNN.
“There will be discussions about whether he should continue,” Axelrod added.
Asked by NBC News if the debate had strengthened his confidence in Biden, one Democrat responded, “The best thing I can do to help Joe Biden is pretend I didn’t get your message.”
Publicly, Democratic Party officials continue to fully support Biden and insist that his poor performance does not change the fundamental importance of the election.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has often been mentioned as a possible alternative, told reporters in the post-debate “spin room” that his party “could not be more fully united in supporting Biden” and said the president should not step aside.
But Biden sounded husky and occasionally stuttered during Thursday’s debate, prompting internal rumors to circulate as aides tried to explain away his condition midway through the debate by claiming he had a cold.
No national party in modern times has ever tried to replace its own candidate in an adversarial manner, in part because it knows it would likely fail. The issue was raised to both parties in 2016, but neither took action.
Party rules make it nearly impossible to replace a candidate without his or her consent, much less smoothly, and doing so would allow party insiders to overturn a primary that overwhelmingly nominated Biden, who won nearly 99% of the delegates.
And at this point, there doesn’t appear to be any serious effort to knock Biden off the top of the list.
Still, the DNC’s rules have some provisions in case the party’s nominee becomes incapacitated or resigns, making an anti-Biden coup at the convention theoretically possible, if highly unlikely. So how would it work?
What if Biden withdraws before the convention?
The only plausible scenario in which Democrats could field a new candidate is if Biden decides to drop out, something he has repeatedly vowed to do during difficult moments in the campaign so far.
He could do as Lyndon Johnson did in 1968, and do so while serving out the remainder of his term in the White House.
If Biden were to withdraw between now and when the nomination is scheduled to be formally made in August, it would be a no-brainer within the Democratic Party, with no mechanism for himself or anyone else to nominate a successor.
A majority of the roughly 4,000 pledged delegates needed to win the party’s nomination; Biden has won 3,900 of them. Recent reforms mean the party’s 700-plus superdelegates — Democratic lawmakers and dignitaries — can only vote if no one wins a majority of pledged delegates on the first ballot, making their votes potentially decisive in a convention that is expected to be tightly contested.
Because Biden’s opponent has won virtually no delegates through the Democratic nomination process, he will essentially go to the convention with a clean slate, and the decision will likely be left to the convention delegates who initially pledged to support Biden.
Biden will have some influence over the delegates he nominates, but ultimately delegates can vote however they like, and candidates are likely to campaign aggressively to win the support of each delegate.
But there’s a key issue: Democrats plan to effectively formally nominate Biden ahead of their convention in late August, to avoid potential concerns about voting access in Ohio, where things have been complicated by technical issues.
Democrats decided to plan for Biden’s virtual nomination after Ohio Republicans balked at passing a pro forma bill that would have allowed Biden to appear on the ballot even though the convention was held after the state’s deadline. But while Republicans passed legislation to extend the deadline, Democrats decided to go ahead with the virtual nomination anyway.
Could Democrats replace him against Biden’s wishes?
There is no evidence the party would consider making the change without Biden’s consent, but even if it did, there is no mechanism for a national party to replace its nominee before the convention, let alone appoint a chosen successor.
If most Democrats lost confidence in Biden, then their national convention delegates could theoretically defect en masse – of course, they were chosen out of loyalty to Biden and have pledged to support him at the convention.
But unlike many Republican delegates, Democratic delegates are not strictly bound to a candidate. Democratic National Convention rules allow delegates some leeway, allowing them to “follow their consciences and reflect the sentiments of the people who elected them.”
The party’s constitution includes a provision for replacing candidates if a vacancy occurs. This applies in cases of death, resignation or incapacity, but does not replace someone who is not willing to step down.
It’s a move that then-interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile wrote about in her memoir after Clinton collapsed two months before the 2016 election.
“I worried not only about Hillary’s health but also about the weakness of her campaign and her lack of fighting spirit,” Brazile wrote in a memoir published a year later.
“Switching candidates was a chance to perhaps win this election and to shift the tide of battle in a way that would confuse Donald Trump and make it difficult for him to catch up,” she wrote, adding that aides to other potential candidates had reached out to her, including then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff.
But within 24 hours of starting his own effort, Brazile realized the plan was impossible to implement without Clinton’s cooperation and would only further divide the party. “My threat to replace her was unworkable,” Brazile wrote.
Current Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison is a longtime Biden ally who is largely at the president’s mercy, and Democrats have given no indication they will support the president’s reelection bid.
What if Biden withdraws after the convention?
To fill a vacancy on the national list, the DNC chairman can call a “special meeting” of the roughly 500-member DNC. On paper, at least, a simple majority vote is all that’s needed to choose a new presidential and vice presidential candidate. But the process will likely be far from smooth, full of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and public pressure campaigns.
But a vacancy occurring so close to the November election could raise constitutional, legal and practical concerns: Among other issues, ballots need to be printed well before the election, meaning changes might not be made in time.
Will Kamala Harris replace Biden?
If Biden were to leave office, Vice President Kamala Harris would automatically become president but would not be the Democratic nominee, and she would not be required to be the nominee if Biden stays in the White House and declines to run for reelection.
While she may have a political advantage, party rules don’t give the vice president any significant mechanical advantage over other candidates.
Biden’s delegates will not automatically go to Harris, as the convention votes separately for presidential and vice presidential candidates, meaning Harris will need to win a majority of the convention’s delegates to win.
Even if the top candidate spot is vacant after the convention, she would still need to win a majority of votes at a special session of the Democratic National Convention.
At least, that’s all there is to it, under the party’s current rules. But a vacancy on the top of the list of candidates is a dramatic moment that could prompt party leaders to reconsider party rules to ensure a smooth transition. Harris has some close allies in key positions at the Democratic National Convention, including co-chair of the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. But nothing is going to happen without a fight.
