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President Joe Biden urged skeptical Democrats to challenge him on the convention floor. But under a controversial plan, he would already be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee when delegates gather in Chicago.
Top national Democrats have pledged to move ahead with a virtual roll call vote, which would head off any messy fight on the convention floor. Legally speaking, it would also make it far more difficult to replace Biden once he is formally declared the nominee.
This is why some of Biden's biggest skeptics are railing against the plan.
"Fast-forwarding the nomination process is no way to convince the many unconvinced voters in the growing number of battleground states," Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said in a statement. "Those so eager to overly protect President Biden ignore his own words inviting anyone questioning his nomination to do so at the Convention."
In a letter to other top Democrats, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Leah Daughtry, who co-lead the Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee, defended the plan to move forward with the virtual vote. They said a Friday meeting would further discuss how the vote would work.
"We will not be implementing a rushed virtual voting process, though we will begin our important consideration of how a virtual voting process would work," they wrote.
Walz said a vote would not happen before August 1. Each of the more than 4,000 delegates elected to participate in the national convention would be able to vote in a virtual vote. Josh Putnam, a respected expert on the delegate selection process, wrote on X that it is possible that superdelegates, which include influential party leaders, could vote as well.
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Doggett was the first congressional Democrat to call on the president to step aside in the wake of Biden's disastrous debate performance — 19 other Democrats have now joined him. As Doggett pointed out, Biden once goaded skeptical Democrats to challenge him on the floor in Chicago.
"I'm getting frustrated by the elites in the party, 'Oh, they know so much more,'" Biden said during an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on July 8. "Any of these guys that don't think I should run, run against me. Announce for president, challenge me at the convention."
Ostensibly, Democrats are pressing ahead because they are concerned that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris might not make the ballot in every state. The Democratic National Committee began putting a back-up plan in May when Ohio looked like it could not change its ballot deadline. Since then, Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called a special session of the state legislature. On May 31, he signed a law ensuring Biden would be on the ballot.
But some of the party's top leaders are still not convinced.
"If we were in a simpler time, we've trusted each other and got it done," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speaking at a news conference on behalf of Biden's reelection, told reporters in Milwaukee, per CNN.
Walz added, "I don't trust them in Ohio to do this."
In their letter, Walz and Daughtry also cited concerns about deadlines in Washington, Montana, Oklahoma, and Virginia.
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison got into a heated back-and-forth with journalist Nate Silver, who rose to fame as an election analyst, on Tuesday after Silver repeatedly pointed out that Ohio had changed its law.
"Love y'all but when it comes to election law and ballot access, I put my trust in our legal team who make a living understanding these laws and processes & not in the pollster who promised us the red wave. #ClassDismissed," Harrison said, misidentifying Silver's profession.
Election law experts have called out Democrats' justifications, saying they are really just designed to help Biden run out the clock on any challenge.
"Respectfully, these are makeweight arguments designed to deflect attention from the Biden/DNC plan to run out the clock, which has been discernible since at least early last week," University of Wisconsin Law School Dean Daniel Tokaji wrote on an election blog hosted by fellow respected expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA.
Hasen has called out the claim that Ohio could try to bait and switch Democrats. He argued that if something like that were to occur, then Democrats could use the statements of Ohio Republican leaders in a potential lawsuit.
"I don't think it's serious to say that Democrats need do a virtual roll call to assure their party's nominee will be on the ballot. This is about politics, not law," Hasen wrote.
Biden has repeatedly declared he's not going anywhere. He's stepped up his campaign schedule and granted more interviews. Still, the doubts about his standing persist, especially after two shaky interviews earlier this week.
An unnamed House Democrat told Politico, "Quiet efforts continue to urge the president to step aside, and team Biden remains dug in."
An AP-NORC poll is likely to fuel those doubts. The poll, which was released on Wednesday, found that nearly 2/3rds of Democrats want Biden to step aside.
