Biden announces he will not run for re-election in the US: what happens now?

The US president has made public a letter this Sunday in which he confirms that he will not be the Democratic candidate for the November elections. Joe Biden is stubborn, headstrong, but the pressure exerted by his own colleagues, after the disastrous debate he held on June 27 against Donald Trump and his entire chain of subsequent mistakes and doubts about his health, has weighed on him. Now he is betting that it will be his second, Vice President Kamala Harris, who will take over from him and beat the Republicans.

However, the fact that he has named her as his successor does not mean that she is already the new Democratic candidate. The process must be carried out by the party, even though this endorsement is formidable and possibly decisive. It is expected that a false open convention will now take place, starting on August 19, in Chicago. A meeting in which Harris will be supported to continue Biden’s work – one of his essential phrases as a president is that he needed four more years in the White House to “finish the job” – and his second, the candidate for vice president on his ticket, will be known.

But there are still weeks to go and dissenting voices are not ruled out, stray verses that want to confront the vice president. There are those in the Democratic Party who want to set aside the idea of ​​a finger pointing and demand, even with candidates of little importance, a miniprimarias that give an image of transparency and reinforce the candidate with the endorsement of his own people, without suspicions. There is talk of a brokered conventionin which uncertainty about the nominee adds excitement to the process. Candidates negotiate on site With the delegates, agreements are reached in closed-door meetings and we can see how the different groups that make up the party compete for power.

Turning the page and leaving the leadership of the party in the hands of someone else is not easy, especially when you are on a new path, because never before has a candidate left with the campaign so advanced. The last word is up to the party delegates, some 3,900 people with very varied profiles and, for the most part, completely unknown to the public. Theirs is the voice. The party set the first week of August as the deadline to choose its candidate, since the Democratic National Convention is held between the 19th and the 22nd of that month. Donald Trump’s Republicans already beat them to it this week, proclaiming the former president in grand style.

It’s late July and whoever is the candidate to win Biden’s nomination will no longer be able to participate in primaries or caucus according to the classic model. These are mechanisms that are used in American politics before the conventions to measure the power of the candidates, in which they test who could attract the most Democratic votes, until eliminating those who do not have real endorsements. In that process, since spring, Biden swept, because his people gave their endorsement to the president with the most legislative action in history. Only Congressman Dean Philips, and Marianne Williamson, author of self-help books, showed up for the primaries, to go quietly after the Biden steamroller. Now that is impossible due to lack of time.

This year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had also planned to hold a virtual vote in early August to determine the nominee, before the convention scheduled for August 19-22. It is unclear whether this plan will continue, as some sectors of the party consider that holding a telematic vote before the convention denotes a lack of transparency. If this telematic vote is suspended, the new candidate would be chosen directly at the convention, where delegates play a crucial role. At the time, they committed to vote for Biden, but this commitment is not irrevocable and they can now opt for other candidates, not for the one Biden prefers.

Democrats know that if they do not build a candidacy relatively quickly and begin to wear each other down, their chances of success are much lower. But now they have the opportunity to turn the tables and remove from the Republicans, in one fell swoop, their main campaign pillar: Biden’s health problems, coherence or mental condition. Harris is young, much younger than Trump, and the Republican will be upset by opposing a woman and an African-American, if the case arises.

For the vice presidential post, names such as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, as well as Pete Buttigieg, the US Secretary of Transportation, are emerging. All of them could also stand to lead the ticket, even if only symbolically. Analysts say it is very difficult for Harris to be a woman again, much less a minority, if she wins. An Anglo-Saxon man seems the most likely. Shapiro is of Jewish origin, so he loses points for that. Buttigieg has always seen himself as Harris’s possible number two if she were to run in the next presidential election, in five years. He is a gay man with enormous popularity. In the background, there is always the greatest Democratic hope, the one that is sweeping the polls: Michelle Obama. She has never wanted to take the step, until now.

All of these names, moreover, are Democrats who are extremely loyal to Joe Biden, so if he has pointed to Harris as his replacement, it is difficult for them to now decide to try to fight for votes from her. That the former prosecutor’s running mate is among them is much more likely. A candidate could be declared the winner by surpassing the magic number of 1,968 delegates, necessary to obtain the nomination.

The logical thing to do is to bet on Harris now, not only because Biden thinks it’s a good idea, but also for pure practicality: she’s already in the campaign and the donations are in her name, within the kind of company with which the campaign is registered, under the name “Biden&Harris”, so she’ll be able to use all the money. Beyond her knowledge (in the party and on the street), she has the paperwork and the money in her favor. If it’s not her, the effort to transform the candidacy will be huge and, possibly, will reduce the chances of the Democrats.

We want to say even more, because the polls are already bad: Trump is the favourite, with between 43 and 47% of voting intention, while Biden, the current contender, did not go beyond 42 or 44%. Harris, according to a CNN poll, would have a smaller difference with the Republican, about two points, within the usual margin of error of the polls. A technical tie that is now more exciting, given Biden’s departure.

On January 20, 2021, Harris became the first woman to hold the vice presidency in the United States. She was greeted with admiration, hope and expectation, but that soon dissolved, even though she has regained a lot of ground in the last year, betting on the defense of basic rights such as abortion. Now may be her time.

The party’s plans

Following Biden’s letter, the Democratic National Committee said that while the withdrawal of a presidential candidate with just over three months to go before the election is “unprecedented,” in the coming days it will undertake a “transparent and orderly” process to replace its candidate. “The work we must do now, while unprecedented, is clear. In the coming days, the Party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November,” said the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, in a statement.

This process, he added, will be governed by the rules and procedures established by the Party, at a time when the delegates “are ready to take seriously their responsibility to quickly present a candidate to the American people.” “Democrats are united and prepared in our determination to win in November. As we move forward to formally select our Party’s candidate, our values ​​as Democrats remain the same: cutting costs, restoring freedoms, protecting the rights of all people, and saving our democracy from the threat of dictatorship,” he said. Within “a short time,” the American people will hear from the Democratic Party “on the next steps and the way forward for the nomination process,” he added succinctly.