Joe Biden withdraws from election campaign – what happens next?

The pressure on US President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race has become too great. Concerns about his age and doubts about his mental fitness are immense, even among his closest confidants. Now the US President has actually withdrawn from the election campaign. Just a few months before the election, the Democrats need a new presidential candidate.

Joe Biden leaves the ship – Vice President Kamala Harris would be logical successor

Biden’s Vice President, Kamala Harris, is considered the natural successor. Even for the US President himself: He has already proposed her.

The 59-year-old Harris was long considered to be a lame performer in her position and had to struggle with poor poll ratings. However, in light of Biden’s stalemate, she has recently gained popularity.

Harris is the first woman and the first black person to be sworn in as US Vice President. Her father immigrated from Jamaica to study economics. Her mother, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist, came from India. The Democrats would need good reasons to simply ignore Harris.

In addition, she is nationally known for her role, she has already passed all the White House checks and could probably access the campaign apparatus and probably also the donations collected by Biden because she was already part of his re-election campaign as vice president. However, if Harris were to move up, she would still need a vice-candidate at her side until the party convention.

Party conference could become a voting drama

Biden has won his party’s internal primaries and has actually secured the necessary delegate votes for the nominating convention, which will take place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago, Illinois. The 81-year-old was actually supposed to be officially chosen as the presidential candidate there. After his withdrawal, however, the delegates in Chicago are no longer bound by the outcome of the primary in their state, but are free to make their own decision.

The Democrats are unlikely to be interested in starting an open competition between several replacement candidates so close to the election and turning the party convention into the venue for a voting drama. Even though influential voices such as Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, have apparently spoken out in favor of doing just that. As the New York Times reports, Pelosi recently emphasized at a meeting of her delegation from California that she would prefer a “competition” rather than simply rallying behind Harris.

Although she is a fan of the vice president, from Pelosi’s point of view an open election in favor of Harris would significantly strengthen her as a candidate. And that might be necessary. According to a survey commissioned by the Washington Post, members of the Democratic Party are very uncertain whether Harris will do better in the election than Biden would have done.

Whether it is Harris or someone else, it is likely that the Democrats will try to rally the party behind a new leader in advance.

Are there any alternatives to Harris?

In addition to Harris, the names Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer have been mentioned most frequently recently. Newsom (56) is the governor of the powerful state of California. He has made a name for himself nationally and has worked intensively on his political profile, most recently with well-publicized trips abroad. Whitmer (52) is the governor of Michigan and has long been considered an up-and-coming force in the party. Before the 2020 election, Biden had considered her as his vice president. According to US media, both have made it clear internally that they are not available for the second row as possible vice presidents for Harris.

Why was Joe Biden’s withdrawal before the convention so important?

If Biden had only dropped out of the race after his official nomination, it would have been the party leadership’s turn. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has several hundred members – with representatives from every state. It would therefore not be a very small executive committee that would decide who should succeed him. Nevertheless, experts say it could have been a nuisance if the decision on who would run for the party had been made in such a round alone. To prevent this, it would theoretically have been possible to convene a separate party convention out of turn – if that had even been possible in terms of time and logistics.

Sources: DPA, ,