[Mega thread] - Biden ends bid for presidency

Biden announced he's ending his bid for the presidency via X (formerly twitter).

Sources:

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581 comments

What happens now? Does the DNC pick a replacement or will they be holding a snap primary?
- If the DNC of the past is any indication, they'll ignore voters and put up the most boring, uncompelling candidate they can.
  
  Alternatively: they put up the most divisive and cringeworthy candidate they can.
  
  Sorry, Trump's already running as a Republican.
  
  DNC busy trying to get Manchin and Sinema to come back to the fold
  
  Oh man, if they both come back it's just a question of which one is on top of the ticket.
  
  I wanted AOC but her last few posts have been cringe. She's divisive, but that could have worked in her favor. Prob. will be Kamala. I think they should have an open convention & let delegates decide though.
  
  And those of us in the party who aren't right-leaning will get blamed when they lose.
- A new canidate will be picked during the DNC on 19-22 august.
  
  Correct.
  And Kamala is the most logical choice, because there will be the least amount of legal hurdles, since she was already on the ticket.
  And the Republicans already said they are going to mount legal challenges, which can easily lead to SCOTUS deciding the election. So I expect Sanders, AOC and progressives to strongly push for Kamala.
  But I fully expect the DNC to push forward some corporate candidate like Bloomberg.
  It's going to be interesting.
  
  There are no legal hurdles. The private organization can nominate whomever they want regardless of their votes and their rules.
  
  The legal hurdles are around getting their candidate on state ballots
  
  Nice insight. Democratic Secretaries of State will find a way. But, Republican Secretaries of State will definitely resist.
  I want to be of a mind that they made the bed to exclude third parties and now should lie in it. But, perhaps this is an opportunity to change the rules of ballot access for the better.
  
  The legal hurdles aren’t in the nomination, they’re in monies donated directly to the Biden/Harris campaign
  
  The only way money is beholden to a campaign is because a major donor insisted upon it. And, no one is asking for a refund on executive and legislative influence.
  
  pick me
  
  You think the DNC is going to try to push out the centrist, sitting vice president of their party during a presidential election? The vice presidential that aligns with the majority of their constituents, has a huge war chest of money, and is a well know and generally liked member of the party?
  The DNC are idiots, but that makes no sense at all.
  
  Mike Bloomberg? He's older than Biden
  
  How is it that states can decide (or whatever the correctt word is) who's on the ballot when the party hasn't even officially nominated a candidate? I know that political parties are separate from election institutions, but it seems very strange. And it seems very early for states to have it set in stone.
  
  I am not a lawyer, but what is clear is that each State sets its own laws. By the constitution, States are in charge of elections.
  What I have heard is that Biden has to release his delegates, who are already bound to him. Many states have already had their primaries completed with the Biden/Harris ticket winning.
  Sending those electors to the Convention and letting them choose someone else is going to be a grey area.
  If they choose Harris, it's pretty sound. When a president steps down, the VP becomes president, so there is definitely precedent and a legal basis.
  But if Biden releases his delegates and lets them vote for anyone? That will be challenged and it will go to the supreme court. And SCOTUS is corrupt enough to find some flimsy legal excuse that helps Republicans.
  So yeah, that's what I've heard. But I am not an expert.
  
  They can't. The nominee is chosen by the party and then communicated to the states. The states do have deadlines for being on it and this year some organizational genius scheduled the convention after the earliest deadline in Ohio. Ohio has since moved that deadline back, but the structure of the law leaves room for shenanigans so the DNC is moving forward with a virtual vote before the convention.
  
  So legally it should be fine to decide at the DNC?
  
  Yes, with a big asterisk on the "should". The law that pushes the deadline back may theoretically not go into effect until after the deadline is passed, and they paired it with some other campaign finance rules that are probably unconstitutional, so there's an outside chance the whole thing gets struck down.
  All that said, the Democrats won't win Ohio for the presidential race. They want to be on the ballot to help turnout for the Democratic senator who's running at the same time. So if they took a risk and lost, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
  
  The new candidate will be picked before then, they were already planning an early roll call vote because the DNC convention is too late for some state deadlines.
  
  August 7 is the deadline. The problem is my state, Ohio. By law, the Democrats must nominate someone in 17 days or be left off the ballot. It's way too fast for a special primary election.
  This is certainly going to face legal challenges in red states, too. The orange one will probably run unopposed in states like Florida.
  
  Serious? I haven't even had time to see that. That is the best decision they could have made.
- Anything could happen. Most likely is the elected delegates will decide at the convention (edit: when you vote for "Biden," you are basically voting for who the delegates that will elect him will vote for, so you still elected those delegates). Redoing a primary before then would be next to impossible. Takes weeks or months to get signatures to get on the ballot, then you need time to recruit staff to work the polls, etc.
  
  Yup. I would be literally stunned if any state primary has no legal path forward for what to do if a primary candidate drops out before the convention. It could get messy, but this idea that the dems will not have a candidate in some states come November is FUD.
  Broadly, when Americans vote in primaries, they are not voting directly for a candidate but kicking off a process that will ultimately send delegates to the party’s national convention. Those delegates are the ones who officially pick the nominee — and the Democrats’ convention hasn’t happened yet.
  https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/21/what-next-biden-00170001
  
  Yeah it's the convention where it's made official that a person is the nominee. If he dropped out after the convention... now that would be a mess. But as it is now, the guy that was the presumptive nominee yesterday is not longer the presumptive nominee.
- My understanding is they pick a replacement

581 comments