Democrats try to switch drivers without stopping the car

It’s not as simple as scratching President Joe Biden’s name off the campaign posters.

Never in modern U.S. politics has a party done what Democrats are attempting by replacing their presidential candidate this close to the election. Some Republicans say it undermines the democratic process since so many voters already chose Biden in the primaries. Nevertheless, it might be legal. Here is a look at what Democrats need to do—and soon—to cement Vice President Kamala Harris as their new nominee.

Make sure she’s the one

For many Democrats, the switch to Harris after Biden dropped out on Sunday was a no-brainer. Biden endorsed her moments after announcing his withdrawal.

“It was default,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. “As the vice president, she is the natural successor to the president. I did it instinctively.”

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., ran for president last year, hoping to spur other Democrats to also offer themselves as alternatives to Biden. He said the party should have spent a little more time considering alternatives to Harris. Just before and directly after Biden’s announcement on Sunday, news media floated the names of potential replacements such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said he would have appreciated a chance to weigh other candidates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.

“It’s not the path I was suggesting,” Doggett said of Harris’ presumptive nomination. “But all the names that were mentioned as possible nominees within 24 hours—in fact within much less than that—endorsed Vice President Harris so I think we’re ready to move forward.”

Rally the delegates

Democratic National Convention delegates are supposed to vote for the candidate who won the primary in the area they represent as long as they can do so in good conscience. From a practical standpoint, the conscience provision gives them freedom to vote for whomever they wish. Additionally, when Biden dropped out of the race, it freed his candidates from any obligation to vote for him.

Harris needs the votes of 1,976 delegates to win the nomination. As of Tuesday, about 3,000 delegates had promised to support her.

“They are free. They can vote for whomever they want,” Manhattan Institute scholar Ilya Shapiro told WORLD.

Opponents of the process could try to argue that since voters did not cast a ballot for Harris, it is illegal to make her the nominee. Harris has the best chance of any Democrat of negating that argument since she was on Biden’s ticket and primary voters technically cast ballots for her as a running mate.

Pick a new veep

Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said the party’s rules committee will meet on Wednesday to discuss options to hold a virtual roll call and nominate Harris before the convention. The DNC planned to do the same thing for Biden to comply with an Ohio deadline of Aug. 7 for parties to get their chosen candidate on the ballot in the state. Ohio also requires a complete ticket, so Harris needs to pick a running mate by then.

Transfer the money

Biden’s campaign had about $91 million dollars in its coffers when he formally suspended his campaign. In the days following, the campaign’s social media pages, field offices, and headquarters rebranded to “Harris 2024.” But the Federal Election Commission dictates different rules for the campaign cash. The Biden campaign cannot simply hand over all of its money to a different candidate, but it might be able to share the wealth more easily with Harris since she was on the ticket with Biden. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that the Trump campaign had filed a complaint with the FEC to block the transfer of Biden’s war chest to Harris, calling the move “the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act.”

Get ready for lawsuits

The Heritage Foundation was preparing to challenge Biden’s withdrawal from the race even before it was announced. In a press call shortly before the June debate between Biden and Trump, Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project at Heritage, said his team had a multistate strategy to pursue litigation if the Democratic Party replaced Biden.

“There’s not a political exception that if you’ve been trying to cover up the fact that your candidate’s been declining rapidly … that doesn't mean you just get to supersede all the election integrity rules that exist throughout the various states,” Howell said.

The Oversight Project was watching key states and analyzing election rules. In most instances, the state laws only apply to official nominees, and Biden hadn’t earned that status yet. Wisconsin prohibits swapping a presidential candidate on ballots except in the case of death. The law is vague as to whether it means the presumptive nominee or official nominee, which could still give the Heritage Foundation grounds to sue to clarify the law.