In Biden’s wake, Democrats scramble

Conventional political wisdom elevated Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020, and it led to forsaking his reelection ambition four years later.

The issue became his obvious ageing from the unforgiving demands of what author and veteran journalist John Dickerson titled “The Hardest Job in the World” in his discerning book on the presidency.

Biden’s weeks-long struggle to save his candidacy after the June 27 debate debacle only served to prolong his private pain over the mounting public disquiet with his physical and mental acuity ordeal.

Democrats urging Biden to step down regret they didn’t act back in the spring of 2023 before he announced plans to stretch his run as America’s oldest president for four more years, reversing his intention to serve as a bridge president to a younger generation.

Now, the Democratic Party faces a scramble to come up with a replacement who can take on former Republican President Donald Trump in what is sure to be a bare-knuckle battle for undecided swing state voters.

With Biden’s departure, Vice President Kamala Harris appears next in line. At 59, she’s two decades younger than Trump, a woman of color and former U.S. Senator from California. Harris is also a former San Francisco prosecutor and California’s Attorney General.

Biden and several other high-ranking Democrats have endorsed her to receive the party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Aug. 19-22.

So far, Harris has been grabbing nearly all the news media attention. She says she expects to “earn and win” the nomination at the convention, and defeat Trump in November.

Trump describes her as a clone of Biden, who he calls the worst president in U.S. history. His campaign declared it is 100 % ready for Harris.

She will need a minimum of 1,968 delegate votes at the DNC convention to wrap up the nomination on the first ballot. Biden accumulated 3,896 delegate pledges in primaries and caucus elections earlier this year. Theoretically, they could fall to Harris, who appeared on previous ballots with Biden.

However, Factcheck.org reported some legal experts say that while convention rules encourage pledged delegates to support the winner of the primaries on the first ballot, they could vote for someone else. Or they might withhold their votes to prevent a first ballot selection.

If the process moves to second and subsequent ballots, the winner must receive a majority of all the 4,000-plus delegates or 2,258 votes. Biden delegates would be cleared to vote for whomever they please.

So-called superdelegates – ranking party officials, members of Congress, governors, former presidents and others – comprise about 15 percent of the delegates. They cannot participate in the first ballot, but can support any candidates on subsequent votes.

Harris has the endorsement of former President Clinton as well as several Democrat governors and congressional members. Thus she still stands to win the nomination if she doesn’t emerge victorious on the initial delegate vote.

Former President Obama did not immediately endorse Harris but he said he had no alternative in mind. He did, however, praise the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration.

DNC convention officials promise a transparent and open process in selecting the party’s president and vice president nominees. For the latter, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has received the most mention.

No matter what happens, political playmakers are hard at work despite the diminishing opportunity for going beyond the first ballot selection of Harris. Inconclusive results feed pre-convention frenzy but seldom happen when time is of the essence.

Labor Day occurs 10 days after the Democratic convention. It is the normal kickoff date for the presidential campaigns to move from low to high tide.

Bill Ketter is CNHI senior vice president of news. Reach him at wketter@cnhi.com.