Biden dropping out complicates presidential election picture
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
President Joe Biden's decision to drop his reelection campaign creates major uncertainty for a Democratic Party that will soon have to select a nominee, a University of Missouri political science professor told ABC 17 News on Monday.
"It's highly unprecedented," said assistant professor Charles Zug, who works at the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy. "Neither party has seen anything this dramatic in terms of a late-stage campaign development in a really long time.”
The last sitting president to drop his reelection was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
"This is not something that we've witnessed before," said professor Peverill Squire, who works at the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy. "You could see it building over the last couple of weeks, particularly in the last few days, so I think when the announcement came down, it was not a huge surprise but, if you were to go back six months or a year ago, it would have come as a complete shock."
Delegates at national conventions for the parties will select the presidential nominee. The candidate must have a majority vote to participate in the general election.
Delegates are people who represent the state or community at presidential national conventions.
Zug said Biden dropping out makes it complicated for the Democratic Party and National Convention because normally, the delegated nominee has been selected by this time.
"Now that he's decided to withdraw, all of those delegates, who are just party officials, who will convene in Chicago in a few weeks, they have to now vote to figure out who's going to replace Biden," Zug said. "There's no automatic process for switching the delegates who were chosen to support Biden automatically to Harris who's now trying to replace Biden."
Biden delegate Paul Harper, of Columbia, told ABC 17 News that he has not made a decision on who he will endorse for president, but plans to do so soon.
Squire said the Republican party will have to reevaluate how it will run its campaigns from now until election night, if Harris is the chosen nominee.
"It changes who their target is, who the opposition is, and they're going to have to recalibrate their, campaign accordingly," Squire said.
He said former President Donald Trump is facing a different type of candidate.
"He's also facing a woman, a woman of color, a woman who's been very vocal on, in favor of, abortion rights. and that will, again, change the tenor of the campaign and so he's dealing with a very different, personality and a very different candidate than before," Squire said.
The Democratic National Convention is set to take place Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.
According to the Associated Press, the Democratic Party will have about 3,900 delegates voting at the Democratic National Convention and more than 4,600 delegates for a second round of voting if needed.
A committee of Democrats plan to meet on Wednesday to go over the rules for nomination and the next steps in the process.
