If Biden leaves, delegates will have to find a replacement.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden’s dismal performance in the presidential debate against challenger Donald Trump has reignited questions about what would happen if the veteran Democrat stepped down as the party’s standard bearer at the last minute.
Such a high-stakes political turnaround would be unprecedented in modern American electoral history. Here’s a look at how replacing the 81-year-old could be possible.
– If a candidate leaves –
To formally designate a candidate, delegates from all 50 states attend their party’s summer nominating convention to officially anoint a candidate based on primary voting.
Biden won a landslide primary victory, and the roughly 3,900 party delegates who will attend the convention in Chicago in August are in his debt.
If Biden leaves, delegates will have to find a replacement. That would mean bringing U.S. politics back to the old days when party bosses jostled to choose a candidate through compromises in dark, smoke-filled rooms and endless rounds of voting.
On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson made the shocking announcement, in the midst of the Vietnam War, that he would not seek re-election.
The measure turned that year’s convention, also in Chicago, into a political crisis with protesters in the streets and left-wing delegates angered by the pro-war stance of the party’s chosen candidate, Hubert Humphrey.
After the disaster, states more widely adopted the primary process and conventions became well-oiled affairs, the results of which were known in advance since they are determined by the primaries.
If a candidate must resign after being officially nominated at the convention, a party’s formal governing body, whether the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee, will nominate a new candidate in a special session.
– Who can fill it out? –
So far, Democrats have circled around their designated candidate, at least when speaking publicly, with former President Barack Obama coming out to defend Biden.
When asked about Biden’s potential departure, campaign communications director Michael Tyler told reporters aboard Air Force One that “there hasn’t been any conversation about that.”
A natural – but not automatic – choice to take Biden’s place would be his 2020 running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sent on Thursday night to put out the fire after the Democratic president’s poor performance, the 59-year-old Democratic president admitted that Biden was “slow to start” the debate but “finished strong.”
Otherwise, any of several strong Democratic politicians — governors Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania are mentioned — could be called.
Meanwhile, could strong hope emerge for a third? So far, no independent candidate poses any danger to the dominant two-party system in America.
In 1992, Texas billionaire Ross Perot, running as an independent, managed to win almost 19% of the popular vote.
But in the end, due to the vagaries of the American electoral system, he did not receive a single one of the most important votes: those of the 538 members of the Electoral College who ultimately decide the winner.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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