Can Democrats replace Joe Biden? DW 07/03/2024

After the first debate between US President Joe Biden and his presumptive opponent Donald Trump last Thursday night, it is no exaggeration to say that the most liberal part of the country was in despair.

Repeatedly throughout the evening, Biden appeared shaky and uttered meaningless sentences. Social media users joked that Vice President Kamala Harris should be “replaced” during commercial breaks and that the debate resembled a humiliating family argument.

Biden failed to allay voters' concerns about his age during the first presidential debate on June 27. Image: Mike Blake/REUTERS

Since then, Biden has blamed his performance on exhaustion from extensive international travel before the debate, and some calm has set in.

“While the period following the debate saw a great deal of nervousness running through the party, the last few days have been marked by a strengthening of the Democratic base,” Cathryn Clver Ashbrook, a German-American expert on transatlantic politics at the German Bertelsmann Foundation, told DW.

“And the potential candidates who were put forward to replace Joe Biden immediately after the debate came out very strongly in favor of the president.”

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who was among those nominated to replace him, told US television channel MSNBC: “You're not turning your back on the White House. [on your candidate] because of a performance. What kind of party does that?

Within the Democratic Party, not everyone agrees. Texas House Representative Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first sitting Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to reverse course.

“Knowing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not to himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to step down,” Doggett told The Associated Press. “I respectfully invite him to do so.”

How likely is Biden to resign?

Doggett isn't a major player, but concerns about Biden's age have only grown since last Thursday's debate.

It would be highly unusual to replace a candidate, especially a sitting president, at this late stage of the campaign. But it is not impossible.

“To replace a candidate at this point, the ideal would be for him to withdraw himself,” said Filippo Trevisan, an associate professor at the School of Communication at American University in Washington. “That would be the easiest.”

Trevisan, however, also said he doesn't see Biden, who has been on the national political stage his entire adult life, giving up on the possibility of winning a second term in the White House.

“Things could change over the next week or so when we see the polls,” said Trevisan, an expert on American politics and election campaigns. “But right now, based on what we've heard from voters, [Biden] and his campaign team, I think it is very unlikely that he will resign.”

On Monday, the Biden campaign released an ad showing an energetic Biden addressing a crowd, saying, “I know I’m not a young man, but I know how to do this job, and I know, like millions of Americans, that when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

What would happen if Biden resigned?

In primaries, Democratic and Republican supporters vote for the candidate they want to see elected. The winner in each of the 50 states receives the support of that state’s delegates. At the Democratic National Convention in August, those delegates will vote for the Democratic presidential nominee. The vast majority of them are Biden supporters. They are not legally required to vote for him, but because of the way the American primary process works, that is what is expected of them.

If Biden steps down, “it’s going to be a free-for-all,” Trevisan said. “They’ll be able to vote for whoever they want.”

This is called an open convention, and delegates will vote their conscience. Democratic Party leaders will choose the candidate they believe has the best chance of winning the presidential election, and then try to gain the delegates' support.

“I would say Harris definitely has the right of first refusal,” J. Miles Coleman, an election analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told DW just after the debate.

Biden-Trump debate: Voters disappointed by televised clash

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But Trevisan said choosing Harris in such a case might not be the best decision.

“His association with the Biden presidency could be negative,” he said. “His approval numbers are similar to Biden’s.”

When a president is unable to run for president, for example due to a medical emergency, the vice president takes over. But Harris would not automatically become the nominee if the president withdrew before the convention.

Possible Biden replacements: Harris, Newsom, Whitmer

Several names have been mentioned, especially in the days following the debate, to designate the one who could become the presidential candidate if Biden is not in the running. In addition to Vice President Harris and California Governor Newsom, there is also Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Whitmer was first elected governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Her re-election was considered a great success. 2022 was a midterm election under a Democratic president (Biden), and it is generally more difficult for candidates from the incumbent's party to convince voters. But Whitmer managed to win another term by a larger margin than expected and in the key state of Michigan, which is not considered a sure-fire Democratic victory state like California or New York.

But like other powerful Democrats, Whitmer publicly endorsed Biden after the debate, writing on the social media platform X that “we must re-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Nancy Pelosi, the two-term speaker of the California House of Representatives and a leading light of the Democratic Party, has asked Biden and Trump to undergo health and mental health tests. But according to AP, she also stressed that Biden is “in top form, in terms of knowing the issues.”

Could another candidate be elected against Biden's wishes?

What if Biden doesn't resign, but Democrats still want to install another candidate at the August convention?

“This will not work unless the Democratic Party’s constitution is overturned or changed,” said Clver Ashbrook of the Bertelsmann Foundation. After all, the United States “had a primary where Joe Biden won 99% of the delegates. To deliberately go against a delegate vote is to circumvent a democratic process. When the country is going through a perilous period in its own democracy, no one in the Democratic Party is going to try that.”

If Biden were to step down even later after the convention, for example for health reasons, even delegates would not be able to vote for a nominee. Instead, the Democratic National Committee would meet and decide on a candidate, which would certainly fuel discussions about the state of American democracy.

Edited by: Andreas Illmer

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