Democrats are searching for possible pathways away from another Joe Biden nomination, including by essentially staging a revolt at the Democratic National Convention in August.
At least 21 Democratic lawmakers have formally called on the president to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, while some high-profile party leaders, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have signaled behind closed doors that the president’s time leading the party is over. After Biden reaffirmed during a post-NATO Summit press conference on Thursday that he would not be taking his name off the ballot, the intraparty panic began to fuel curiosity about a potential alternative.
At least one Democratic National Committee member and convention delegate is openly speculating about simply not endorsing Biden at the convention. Joe Salazar, a former Colorado state representative and a DNC delegate at the August convention, believes that the conference should force Biden off the ticket if he refuses to step aside on his own.
“No Democrat presidential candidate should ever be trailing Donald Trump. That dude is a treasonous lyin’ multi-felon,” Salazar told The Lever’s podcast Lever Time. “I’ve been hearing from people before Biden announced his reelection campaign. And people were concerned then back in August and September, about the fact that he was thinking about running again. And so he decided to run.”
But Salazar says that since Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, Coloradans of every stripe are “begging and pleading” that he figure out a way to get the president to step down.
Biden isn’t yet the party’s official nominee, although he did win thousands of delegates through the Democratic primary, during which the DNC did not truly consider other options. That has provided the basis for Salazar’s plan.
The DNC’s official rules designate that pledged delegates’ votes must in “good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.” The nomination process requires a candidate to win 1,976 delegates. Since Biden has already secured 3,896 delegates, he should be a shoo-in on the first ballot, even if a significant number of delegates opt to defect.
But on the second ballot, approximately 700 superdelegates, who include governors and lawmakers, will join the vote, and their inclusion could potentially turn the vote.
“If Biden doesn’t budge, Salazar and others hope that DNC rules could allow them to file a petition to call for a different candidate, and essentially revolt at the convention,” explained Lever Time host Arjun Singh. “He added that this is still a hypothetical point. But he and an official in the Colorado Democratic Party are actively exploring whether their idea of a petition could be a provable workaround.”
However, should Biden decide to leave the race by his own volition before the convention, all of his pledged delegates will be released to nominate whomever they choose.
