Conservatives may pull all of the stops to stop Democrats if the party tries to replace Joe Biden on the November election ticket, according to a memo from a top right-wing think tank.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project began researching the laws for replacing a president in several battleground states about four months ago, putting together a report in April and releasing it before Thursday’s debate disaster, according to NOTUS.
“If the Biden family decides that President Biden will not run for re-election, the mechanisms for replacing him on ballots vary by state,” the memo states. “There is the potential for pre-election litigation in some states that would make the process difficult and perhaps unsuccessful.”
When NOTUS reached out to the Oversight Project, its executive director, Mike Howell, didn’t mince words, saying that they believe replacing Biden would be “extraordinarily difficult,” and that “we would make it extraordinarily difficult.”
“We’ve zeroed in on a few states that we think are the best case,” Howell said, refusing to elaborate on which ones. “It all depends on when and how they do it. And then what state that we’re looking at now that matches up to be the right one, going in there and working with the right people.”
With calls to replace Biden growing within the Democratic Party, and leading members openly discussing the prospect, the fact that the Heritage Foundation, arguably the GOP’s ideological engine, has already been preparing to thwart any such plans is worrying. According to the memo, the key states of Wisconsin, Nevada, and Georgia are where legal action to keep Biden on the ballot could pay off.
Democrats might be able to derail such efforts if Biden is replaced quickly, as he still doesn’t officially have the party’s nomination for president. While this would normally be determined at August’s Democratic National Convention, the party was planning to select Biden in a virtual roll call before then to avoid the prospect of certain states with timing laws excluding him from their ballots.
The Trump campaign would back the Heritage Foundation’s efforts to fight a Biden replacement, as they see Biden as a weaker opponent now.
“We definitely want the dementia patient,” a source close to Trump told NOTUS. “They made their bed; they get to sleep in it. But we also love the chaos of their public decision-making process.”
Recent polls show Biden was hurt by the debate, and he is running behind Trump across the country in several key states, and even in states previously thought safe. If Democrats think that Biden needs to be replaced, they need to decide quickly, and at the very least, they need to call upon their legal soldiers to make sure their decision holds up.
