What happens next: Open convention, does Kamala get the nomination straight away? All your questions answered
President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday, setting in motion an unprecedented series of events that has Democrats scrambling to find a candidate for the top job with less than four months to go until Election Day.
The Democratic National Convention kicks off in Chicago from August 19 to 22. Biden is expected to formally accept the nomination there after winning 3,896 delegates in the primaries.
More than 4,600 delegates and thousands of other party officials will now travel to the city without Biden as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic ticket.
The president announced this in a letter to his countrymen, in which he wrote that it was the greatest honor of his life to be president.
“While it was my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on fulfilling the duties of my president for the remainder of my term,” he wrote.
He did not endorse another Democrat, but instead wrote that he would speak to the nation later this week to provide more details about his decision.
President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would step aside and not run for re-election in the 2024 presidential election, saying it was in the best interests of the party and his country
His announcement came just weeks after the president’s disastrous debate performance raised questions about whether he was fit for a second term. Some Democratic lawmakers publicly called on him to withdraw from the race. Others kept their opinions private.
Voters were divided over the way forward. Several polls showed a majority of Democrats thought he should drop out of the race, but many said they would still vote for him if he stayed.
Only Biden could make the decision to leave. Now that he has, this is what happens next:
What are the nomination rules?
The Democratic Party does have rules governing what happens if the president resigns before being formally nominated.
Although Biden had the delegates he needed, his formal nomination would take place during a virtual roll call before the convention. The latest guidance is that this would happen in the first two weeks of August, but not before August 1.
Because Biden withdrew from the race before officially becoming the nominee, the more than 3,900 delegates can cast their votes for any candidate during an open convention.
Every Biden alternative whose name was mentioned before he dropped out of the race maintained that they supported Biden. It is not clear who would jump into the race with his departure.
Representatives told DailyMail.com before his departure that they would stick with Biden. Few were willing to speculate on an alternative option, but many suggested it should be Vice President Kamala Harris.
If a candidate receives a majority of the pledged delegates on the first ballot, he becomes the party’s nominee.
If no candidate wins a majority, then the nearly 740 superdelegates, also known as automatic delegates, are also allowed to vote. They are a mix of party members and elected officials.
Voting continues until one candidate has a majority of the delegates.
Before Biden withdrew from the race, he expressed confidence in his number two, Vice President Kamala Harris. At the time, he had maintained that he was not withdrawing from the race, but on July 11, he said he would “wouldn’t have picked her if he “didn’t think she was qualified to be president.”
President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on July 4
The vice president also gets a boost, because the viable alternative is the money race.
What happens to the money?
One of the biggest challenges for Democrats is how to raise a massive amount of money large enough to take on Donald Trump in a short period of time. Biden’s war chest wouldn’t necessarily flow to his replacement, leaving a lot of money on the table.
In the second quarter of the year, Biden’s team raised a total of $264 million, ending June with $240 million in cash.
Federal candidates are allowed to transfer unlimited amounts of money to the national party, allowing Biden to leave all the money with the Democratic Party, which can then spend it on the new nominee.
But the campaign can’t just send the money directly to the nominee, since there’s a $2,000 cap per candidate per election. Instead of giving the money directly to a campaign, it would have to be returned to the original donors, who would then have to give it to the candidate.
The only person who wouldn’t face the same problems as a replacement candidate is Harris.
Campaign finance law allows her to share a campaign committee with Biden, because the president and vice president are running together as one candidate and her name is already authorized.