Facing little opposition, Harris poised to smoothly supplant Biden on the Democratic ticket

With President Joe Biden out of the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris seems likely to take his place at the top of the Democratic ticket, attracting near-unanimous support among incumbent Democratic lawmakers and reportedly clearing the delegate threshold to formally clinch the nomination.

Biden announced on Sunday that he had decided not to seek reelection in November, saying that “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

He subsequently endorsed Harris for president, saying “[m]y very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.” Harris, for her part, has indicated that “my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”

While Biden’s endorsement to succeed him will likely prove a boon to Harris’s efforts, he cannot merely anoint her as the party nominee and she will still need to receive the Democrats’ blessing at the Democratic National Convention in August.

With less than a month until that event, the Democratic Party could face a comparable situation to the chaotic 1968 convention that followed President Lyndon Johnson’s March 1968 decision not to seek reelection amid his declining popularity.

The party ultimately nominated then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey in a convention that was rocked by anti-Vietnam War protests. Humphrey eventually lost the 1968 presidential election to Republican Richard Nixon.

In 2024, however, Democrats will have even less time to rally behind a new nominee, though they appear poised to near-uniformly break for Harris, who will face the daunting prospect of defending the administration’s record as she seeks to lift the party out of its polling slump and take on former President Donald Trump.

Endorsements

Thus far, no other Democrat has indicated plans to challenge Harris for the party nomination. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin briefly flirted with the idea, but ultimately decided against such an effort.

In the wake of Biden’s announcement, the vast majority of elected Democrats threw their support behind Harris for the nomination, including all 23 incumbent Democratic governors, according to the New York Times. She has also earned the backing of 43 senators and 194 members of the House.

Several more senators and House lawmakers issued statements on the matter without endorsing Harris explicitly. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Harris on Tuesday.

"When I spoke with her Sunday, she said she wanted the opportunity to win the nomination on her own and to do so from the grassroots up, not top-down,” Schumer said. “We deeply respected that, Hakeem and I did. Now that the process has played out from the grassroots, bottom-up, we are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ultimately offered her support after roughly a day, saying “it is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country's future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States.”

She further added that her support was “official, personal and political.”

Some holdouts and doubters exist

Notably absent from Harris’s list of backers is former President Barack Obama, who played a key role in convincing Biden to tap Harris for the vice presidential slot.

“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” Obama wrote in a statement that made no mention of Harris.

Some left-leaning outlets, moreover, such as the Daily Beast have expressed caution that the party’s swift embrace of Harris could spell trouble with a frustrated base. The outlet highlighted both Obama’s statement as well as Pelosi’s focus on the “process” as evidence that the party elite appear wary of seemingly disregarding the traditional vehicle for choosing a nominee and giving the appearance of a “rigged” selection.

On the Republican side, Trump seems to believe that the selection of an alternative nominee will undercut party efforts to label him as a “threat to democracy.”

“The Democrats pick a candidate, Crooked Joe Biden, he loses the Debate badly, then panics, and makes mistake after mistake, is told he can’t win, and decide they will pick another candidate, probably Harris,” Trump posted earlier this week. “They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries — A First! These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

The process

The Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee is expected to meet on Wednesday to create a framework for choosing a new nominee, according to the Wall Street Journal. That meeting will be available on YouTube.

In order to claim the nomination on the first round, Harris will need to secure the support of 1,976 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. As of Monday evening, 2,668 delegates have allegedly pledged their support for her candidacy.

“I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee,” Harris said in a statement. “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”

Biden accumulated most of the delegates in the party primary, winning every nominating contest except for American Samoa, which he lost to businessman Jason Palmer.

Delegates face limited restrictions on their choice of candidate and the 2024 Convention rules state that “[a]ll delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

Biden will not need to release his delegates to permit them to vote for Harris, according to CNN, though they may ultimately opt to support someone else should an alternative candidate emerge.

Biden previously indicated that his delegates were “free to do whatever they want,” in a press conference that predated his decision, NBC News reported. Notably, the Biden campaign helped to choose many of the DNC delegates, potentially giving Harris considerable pull with them. 

Should Harris fail to clinch the nomination on the first round, however, the party’s roughly 700 superdelegates could vote on the second round, potentially complicating the process. Thus far, however, no alternative candidate has emerged to challenge Harris and she appears to have enough support to avoid that scenario.

Virtual convention?

The party had planned to hold a "virtual roll call" to formally nominate Biden in order to meet the Ohio deadline to appear on the state ballot.

It remains unclear, however, whether the party will move forward with such an effort. The Ohio legislature has since passed legislation that will push back the deadline for the party to submit its nominee, which will take effect Sept. 1, according to NBC News.

Prior to the passage of the law, the Ohio deadline had been Aug. 7, though the DNC was scheduled for later in the month. Without the extended deadline, the party would have had to officially nominate Biden ahead of the DNC for his name to appear on the ballot in the Buckeye State.

VP selection is less clear

Traditionally, the selection of a nominee’s running mate is a matter of their personal discretion. Trump, for his part, opted for Ohio GOP Sen. JD Vance, keeping his choice close to the vest until the Republican National Convention.

Harris, for her part, will have to make a selection rather quickly and is almost certain to face some jockeying for the post.

Among the most prevalent names in circulation for the role are Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Penn.; Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C.; Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky.; Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill.; Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich.; Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif.; and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

She has yet to signal any preference as to her choice of running mate and it remains unclear when she will make a decision.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X.