Photo: AP

After the disastrous Biden-Trump debate last month, a growing number of Democratic Party (DP) members were working to convince President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. They were even attempting to stall his nomination process by opposing Democratic National Committee’s plan to nominate Biden via a “virtual roll call” vote on August 7 weeks before the party’s August convention. Despite the unrest in his party President Biden was insisting on not stepping back till last Friday.

Considering this background, his announcement of ending his bid for the candidacy on Sunday came as a pleasant surprise to many Democrats. Biden, through a statement on X, endorsed his current Vice President (VP) Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. While Biden's decision is praised as selfless patriotism, the support already has begun to line up behind Harris receiving endorsements from several influential Democrats, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. Moreover her campaign has raised $50 million donations in less than one day which is a record in US history.

However, there is a long way to go before  the candidacy of Harris is official. Democratic Party will be gambling with many risks if they go with her candidacy. First of all her race and gender are an issue as there is only one black president in more than two centuries of US democracy and no woman at all. In addition, Harris also kept a low profile during the Biden administration and when she was put on the front line, she was tasked with impossible problems like immigration and the Mexican border crisis where she failed. This is why she will need to work hard to compensate against the strong and capable leader image of Trump. 

On the plus side Harris performs marginally better than Biden in the polls being two points behind Trump instead of six. Also she was ahead of other Biden replacement candidates in the same poll. Moreover she turns the age argument to reverse as she is 59 years old making Trump much older in the race. Being herself black she may regain the support of the Black and Hispanic voters that Biden lost since 2020.

Vice President Harris may be brought to the headlines by Biden but still others could seek the presidential nomination. It is important that Former President Obama, while praising President Biden as a “patriot of the highest order,” because of his decision did not endorse Harris as his replacement, favouring an open competition for the candidacy. The same for Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also restrained herself to commit to Harris and it is known that she favours like Obama an open nomination process.

While Democratic Party members think who will be their candidate, Republicans think how to challenge Biden drop out. Democrats immediately replied that Republicans have no legal basis for a challenge. The director of a conservative think tank - Heritage Foundation - said that it has reserved millions of dollars to a nationwide challenge and the difficulty of replacing a candidate varies from state to state. According to their statement several swing states have specific procedures for the withdrawal and Wisconsin does not allow withdrawal except in the case of death.

Although technically Biden is not the nominated DP candidate till the delegates vote for him in the Democratic National Convention late in August, some states may argue that the delegates pledged to elect him when they were sent to the convention. 

Moreover, Republicans state that there is "also the possibility that states will be complicit in an improper withdrawal or substitution." That alone should give how Trump and Republicans will proceed in the case of a win by the Democrats.

At the moment Democrats are ecstatic in getting rid of Biden and Harris is as good as any candidate to challenge Trump and they speculate who may be the Vice President for Harris. It is generally accepted that the VP candidate will be a middle aged white male from a swing state. They better choose him not from Wisconsin.

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