The Democratic National Convention is set to look very different next month.
Even though President Joe Biden has backed Vice President Kamala Harris for president after exiting his race for re-election, it’s not guaranteed she will secure the party nomination. Harris will have to win a majority of delegates at the convention, like any other candidate, and she says she plans to earn and win the nomination.
“The VP now is making a really smart move, especially in her initial statement, that she’s not taking this for granted, she is going to go out and earn the support of members of her party,” said political historian Patrick Maney. “I think it some ways this is the most consequential year since 1968, since Lyndon Johnson on March 31 stunned the nation by saying he would not run again.”
In the last 75 years, only two presidents have stepped aside during an election year: Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson.
In both cases, the Democrats who became the nominee lost to the Republicans, and both candidates faced competition for their party’s nomination, whereas Biden did not.
“Biden has a lot of accomplishments but politically, I think it’s one of the criticism that will be made of him, that he stifled democrats from blossoming and being viable national figures,” Maney said.
Biden has exited the race later than any previous president and he is the first president to be pressured not to run again over concerns about his mental fitness.
As for what’s next, the Democrats were scheduled to vote on the presidential nomination remotely before the party’s convention on August 19. It’s not clear if the party will stick to that plan or allow for a formal vote on the convention floor.
Now that Biden is no longer a candidate, his delegates are free to vote for whomever they want. He does not need to formally release his delegates.
The chair of the Democratic National Committee said there will be a “transparent and orderly process” to move forward but did not share details on what that process would look like.
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