WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he abandon his re-election campaignDemocratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison had a message: There would be no automatic coronation of his successor.
“In the coming days, the party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward,” Harrison said in a statement. “This process will be governed by established party rules and procedures. Our representatives are prepared to take seriously their responsibility to quickly deliver a nominee to the American people.”
The comment reflected the reality that while vice president Kamala Harris emerges as the undisputed favorite to become the party’s nominee — already backed by Biden and many Democrats — it’s not that simple. And for now, the party isn’t offering many details about what happens next.
Harris must formally secure the nomination of the Democratic convention’s roughly 4,700 delegates, including those who have pledged support for Biden, as well as elected officials, former presidents and other party stalwarts known as superdelegates. She spent part of Sunday calling elected officials and delegates to reaffirm their support.
Biden won every state in the Democratic primary, and Harris was slated to be his running mate. His selection of her as his successor even as he withdrew from the race further bolsters her case, as do the endorsements from party heavyweights like South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. Many other Democratic leaders publicly supported the vice president even before Biden left the race, urging him to “pass the torch” to her in the wake of his dismal debate performance against Republican candidate Donald Trump last month.
“People are going to have their say and they should. I think we’re seeing a lot of the vice president rallying behind them,” said Rahna Epting, executive director of the progressive activist organization MoveOn. “And that’s important because as we saw in the Biden debates, there’s momentum that can be built one way or another, and it’s important that we build momentum toward unity.”
Ken Martin, chairman of the Association of State Democratic Committees, which represents the 57 parties in the states and territories, said Harris was the obvious choice: “Now that she has served alongside President Biden, she is ready on day one as a candidate and as our next president.” She also had the support of the executive board of the 1.75 million-member American Federation of Teachers union.
But Democratic rules state only that delegates vote “in good conscience” for the candidate they represent, with no mechanism for defectors. And some in the party have endorsed an open nomination process.
There is a lively debate about how to proceed among lawmakers, major donors and former senior officials from the Biden, Obama and Clinton administrations, a Democrat with close ties to the Biden administration said Sunday.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, argued that Harris would benefit from a competitive mini-primary ahead of the Democratic convention because it would help cement her credibility as a strong candidate and defuse criticism that she has been anointed undemocratically. That’s an accusation the Trump campaign has already tried to use against her and one that could play a major role in the battle for undecided voters in swing states.
But such a scenario could result in Democrats going into their national convention without a clear nominee, perhaps choosing one through a series of floor votes. That could mean the leading Democratic candidates seeking to replace Biden visiting individual state delegations to lobby — a process not seen since 1960, when Johnson and John F. Kennedy vied for support during that year’s Democratic convention in Los Angeles.
If that were to happen, many other prominent Democrats who supported Biden in 2024 and had their own presidential aspirations for future cycles could vie for the nomination, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, in addition to Harris.
Inside the White House, however, there is little expectation that Harris will face a serious challenge, according to a person familiar with the deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Whitmer has already said she will not run, and Newsom has said he would support Harris if she were the nominee.
Others mentioned as viable candidates — including Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper — have both endorsed Harris and also appear unlikely to run, given Biden’s support for the vice president and the expected fundraising advantage she would have over anyone else entering the field.
Complicating matters further is the fact that the DNC had planned to hold a virtual roll call to choose its nominee before the convention, in order to comply with Ohio’s voting laws. The original deadline for the vote in that state was August 7, and while the legislature has since passed a law invalidating that, it doesn’t go into effect until September 1.
Lawyers for the DNC say this means the party could face legal challenges in Ohio if it fails to name its party’s nominee by the state’s original deadline. But the convention’s rules committee has said it will not set a date for the virtual roll call — which could last several days — before Aug. 1.
Some Democrats fear a slew of other legal challenges from the GOP, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defended Biden’s decision to stay in the race by arguing that replacing him could lead to “a presidential election decided by Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court” — as happened in the 2000 presidential election and the disputed recount in Florida.
During this week’s convention rules committee meeting, members could establish virtual roll call rules and a process for nominating Harris. But they could also create a more open process for choosing a nominee, according to a person familiar with the process who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Harrison refrained from supporting Harris in a statement, saying only: “Soon the American people will hear from the Democratic Party about the next steps and the path forward for the nomination process.”
A somber Harrison also participated in a virtual meeting of the Congressional Credentials Committee on Sunday, telling members, “I’m emotional.”
“I still support my president,” Harrison said of Biden. “And we will get through this, my friends, as we always do.”
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Associated Press editor Colleen Long contributed to this report.
