Image source, Getty Images
- author, Madeline Halpert
- role, BBC News
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President Joe Biden has announced that he is withdrawing from the US electoral race and will endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
The decision thrusts the party into uncharted territory with just a month to go until the Democratic National Convention, where the selection of party candidates will be finalized.
Is Biden still the President of the United States?
That’s right, he just finished campaigning for reelection to the White House on November 5th.
He has pledged to remain president until his successor is officially sworn in in January.
But Biden has faced calls from top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, for him to step down immediately.
Is Kamala Harris now the Democratic presidential candidate?
There is no guarantee that Vice President Kamala Harris will replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden won the support of a majority of delegates in the recent primary elections and was due to be formally endorsed this summer. Delegates are people selected to represent their districts at the party’s key nominating event, the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
Biden has endorsed Harris as the Democratic candidate, but it will be up to the delegates to decide who to support.
But she is a fellow candidate with Biden, and his endorsement makes her the most likely candidate.
Such a situation is unprecedented in modern times: The last time a sitting US president abandoned a re-election campaign was Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968.
Could other candidates come forward and how will they be selected?
In recent weeks, as calls have grown for Biden to withdraw from the race, several potential successors have emerged.
Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also emerged as a possible candidate but has said she wouldn’t consider running if Biden resigns. On Sunday, minutes after Biden announced his intention to resign, Whitmer said she would do everything she could to “get Democrats elected and stop Donald Trump.”
And since then, other rumored successors, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, have also endorsed Harris.
The Democratic National Convention is set to begin on Aug. 19. If the party cannot come together to back a particular candidate, it could hold its first open convention in decades.
This means that if multiple candidates emerge, delegates are free to decide who to vote for.
A candidate’s name must receive the signatures of at least 300 delegates (not to exceed 50 from any one state) in order to appear on the ballot.
The first vote will be held among 3,900 pledged delegates, including voters considered loyal to the Democratic Party.
If no candidate receives a majority of the votes in this first round, further rounds of voting will take place. These rounds include superdelegates, party leaders, and elected officials, all of whom vote until a candidate is chosen.
To secure the party’s nomination, a candidate must receive 1,976 delegate votes.
How does the winning candidate choose their running mate?
This tends to be a less formal process than selecting a presidential nominee, with the candidate’s choice being generally accepted as his or her running mate, CNN reported.
If Harris were to replace Biden as the top Democratic candidate, people being discussed as her running mate include the aforementioned prominent Democrats, including Shapiro, as well as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
If she wins, her running mate will be the future vice president.
What will happen to the funds promised to Biden?
Because Harris was a fellow presidential candidate with Biden, campaign finance experts have suggested that some of the roughly $100 million Biden has saved could flow directly to her if she becomes the Democratic nominee.
Dara Lindenbaum, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, told The New York Times that this is “not an unsettled issue.” “It’s very clear,” she added.
But Republicans have indicated they intend to challenge the transfer, pointing out that Biden was not yet officially the party’s nominee when he dropped out of the presidential race.
It is unclear what will happen to the funds raised by the Biden-Harris campaign if someone other than Harris becomes the nominee.
