Joe Biden is leaving the race. What does it mean for Florida?

Will Biden’s name appear on the ballot in November? Probably not.

President Joe Biden announced Sunday he would exit the presidential race, ending weeks of speculation and throwing the 2024 election into a state of uncertainty.

Much is unknown at this point. But in Florida, we can answer a few key questions at this early stage.

What role did Florida Democrats play in Biden’s decision?

The Florida Democratic Party had been one of the most pro-Biden state parties in the country. The party canceled the presidential primary earlier this year, allowing Biden to take every delegate.

In an interview on July 17, state party chairperson Nikki Fried said her party was unified around Biden.

“The people on the ground here are more energized on the ground today for Joe Biden than they were a month ago,” she said.

As calls grew for the president to step down, few Florida Democrats were among the chorus. To the contrary, U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Frederica Wilson were among the president’s most vocal defenders in the wake of Biden’s widely panned June 27 debate performance.

One of the few Democrats to call for Biden’s exit was Tampa U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, who on Friday said Biden should “pass the torch.”

But Biden faced pressure from senior Democrats and donors who worried that the downward trajectory of his campaign could cost their party the Senate this fall.

Republicans openly hoped for Biden to stay in the race. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis called that the “best possible scenario for Republicans.”

Last week, U.S. Marco Rubio argued that if Biden is not up to running for reelection, he should resign his post. His Senate colleague Rick Scott said the same thing Sunday in reaction to Biden‘s announcement.

What happens at the Democratic Convention?

Never in the modern era has a presidential candidate won the majority of their party’s delegates only to bow out before the convention, said David Greenberg, a history professor at Rutgers University.

But that’s exactly what’s happened with Biden.

Officially, his 3,896 delegates could be released to vote for whichever candidate they wanted at the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But practically, the Democratic party is likely to unite behind Vice President Kamala Harris — for both political and logistical reasons.

Biden, still his party’s standard bearer, endorsed Harris in a statement Sunday.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden posted to X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

Numerous prominent Democrats followed suit, including Broward-area Rep. Jared Moskowitz.

Logistically, Harris presents fewer hurdles than choosing a nominee who wasn’t already on the presidential ticket. The Biden-Harris campaign has already hired dozens of staffers around the country, including in Florida.

The Biden-Harris ticket had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for what until today had been Biden‘s reelection run. Harris can more easily access the campaign infrastructure than any other hypothetical candidate, said Aubrey Jewett, an associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

“It’s sort of like having a joint bank account,” Jewett said.

What does the polling say?

There hasn’t been much substantive polling done of Florida with Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee. However, most surveys showed Biden trailing by between 5 and 10 points to Trump, according to the forecasting site FiveThirtyEight.

Will Biden’s name still appear on the ballot in November?

In Florida, parties submit the names of their candidates to officials after their conventions, according to the state elections website. Since Biden stepped down before the convention, the new Democratic nominee will appear on state ballots.