Joe Biden’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump on Thursday fueled speculation about the possibility that the 81-year-old Democratic president, a candidate for re-election in November, would throw in the towel.
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This scenario, which is currently very unlikely, would plunge the United States into a period of great uncertainty.
Explanations.
For what ?
Joe Biden, the oldest sitting US president, missed a crucial opportunity to reassure millions of voters of his vitality and health during the first debate of the campaign.
On stage, the Democratic leader often appeared confused, mincing his words and getting confused.
AFP
Calls to withdraw from anonymous Democrats spread through the press as soon as the show ended.
Joe Biden regularly says he is the best-qualified candidate, despite polls that show his age is turning off voters.
At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, he reiterated that he expects to “win” the November election.
“I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he admitted, but “I know how to do this job”
How ?
If Joe Biden were to throw in the towel, however, the process to replace him would be a bit technical.
The president has already been nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee in a series of primaries held from January to June, and is therefore expected to be inaugurated at the party’s convention in Chicago.
If Joe Biden were to drop out of the race before this major rally, scheduled for mid-August, the final say would go to the party delegates, 3,900 people with very diverse backgrounds and most of them completely unknown to the general public.
This would then be “the kind of convention where anything goes,” with each side trying to push its candidate forward, predicts Elaine Kamarck, a researcher at the Brookings Institute, in a recent note.
A roughly comparable scenario presented itself to Democrats on March 31, 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announced, in the midst of the Vietnam War, that he would not seek a second term.
What if Joe Biden were to drop out of office between the convention and the election? The party’s “national committee” would then nominate the candidate in a special session.
Who ?
Joe Biden has already nominated Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign with him, but there is no rule that says the running mate automatically replaces the incumbent candidate.
Vice President Kamala Harris.
Getty Images via AFP
Sent to put out the fire after the poor performance of the Democratic president, the fifty-year-old conceded that Joe Biden had been “slow to start”, but that he had “finished strong”.
At no time did she mention the possibility of replacing him.
Kamala Harris, the first woman and first African-American to serve as vice president, could also face competition from other members of the party’s young guard.
Like California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is on the rise among Democrats.
The latter, however, considered that this type of “conversation” was “not good for our democracy”.
The names of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro are also being bandied about.
