Electors meet in their state capitols to cast their votes on December 14. Biden would have absolutely no legal authority to tell them to vote for anyone but him, but if they did so then they would be subject to any faithless elector laws their state may have. These generally take two forms: a penalty on the faceless elector and/or replacement by an elector who will vote for the majority winner of the state. The Supreme Court has ruled these laws to be valid.
If any faithless electors are successful in casting their vote, it would fall to Congress on January 6 to decide if these electors are valid. They would do so using the process outlined in the updated Electoral Count Act, which requires 1/5 of each chamber to submit in writing an objection to the faithless EVs. It would require a majority of both chambers to invalidate them.
But the big unanswered question is whether those invalidated EVs lower the threshold for an EV majority. A candidate must win an EV majority to be elected President. If the invalidated votes still count for the purposes of determining the number needed for an EV majority, then it’s possible no candidate would have a majority and it would go to the House.
One other point (sorry but I nerd out on this stuff) – it’s not even clear that the candidate being dead would free up all of his or her electors. I certainly haven’t reviewed every state’s faithless elector laws, and I’m sure that there are some that provide for the death of the candidate but my strong suspicion is many don’t. Some electors could be forced to vote for a dead man.
The only time in American history when a major party candidate died after the election but before the electoral vote was 1872 with Horace Greeley. His electors ended up splitting their votes among several candidates, although three still voted for him. None of it mattered because he had gotten destroyed by Grant in the election.
I agree with this; however, for this to work, Harris would have to step aside with a convincing smile on her face and a plausible excuse for why she is stepping aside.
Given human nature, I think the odds of this happening are pretty close to zero.
And there are also the issues with handing the campaign cash and the pledged electors over to the new ticket. (Biden’s cooperation would obviously be necessary, too.) I don’t think we know as much about all that as we need to, but undoubtedly the process would be easier if Harris were still on the ticket.
Misogyny is a real issue among the voters needed to stop Trump. Clearly his voters are open about it, but there’s too much of it even among people disinclined to vote for Trump.
IF Biden were to do the patriotic thing and resign now, then we’d have weeks of Kamala in the Presidency before the August convention—and depending on her performance, there might be more people willing to give her a chance with their November vote.
All unlikely, admittedly. Joe and Joe’s family and staff are highly motivated to cling to their delusional belief that Only Biden Can Defeat Trump. They will studious ignore all evidence suggesting otherwise.
It’s a temporary fix – they extended the deadline for just this election cycle. The ability of future Republican and Democratic Presidential nominees to be on the Ohio ballot will require them moving up their conventions or gambling on Ohio politicians to grant another waiver.
The more I think about it, if Joe steps aside, the only practical option is Kamela.
She is the VP, would be able to use the Biden/Harris war chest, and has been working the donors hard. Avoid the whole mess of alienating her draw among blacks and women if some white guys take the spot.
Anyone that’s a decade or three younger than Trump immediately flips the cranky, demented, unhealthy, one foot in the grave, old man playbook directly onto Trump. The big nuclear card that the Republicans have been successfully playing, becomes a huge liability.
Anyone that has the D by their name automatically accrues all the voters that are voting against Trump. I find it hard to believe there is a significant cohort of “not Donnie, but I refuse to vote if it ain’t Joe” folks out there.
Anyone new instead of good ol’ Joe will add drama and attention to the race (of course, there is a risk of a shit show). Probably enticing enough for a significant number of younger voters, double haters, real fence sitters to actually cast ballots. It can’t be worse than the current choice between two old white men.
Kamala can and should take a second page from the trump playbook and get in the mud with all the name calling. “Hey felon boy, you afraid to debate a strong black woman? What are you, a big fat orange pussy? Porn star confirms not only your hands are small, and your performance probably didn’t even satisfy your horny ol goat cheating self while your wife was pregnant. Speaking of which, how many abortions did you being a slave to your dick cause?” Imagine a few months of bitch slapping Trump ahead of election day?!?
It’s a simple playbook.
Trump is the stupid old man in the race
Protect the right to choose from the stupid old lying, cheating pig that is going for a national ban on abortion. Sheesh, next on the list is banning pre-martial sex (in a roundabout way by banning all contraception).
Can’t let the stupid old bastard appoint any more corrupt Supremes
If Biden should step aside, and I think he should, it needs to be a near-immediate resignation. That’s because the same reason he cannot, at least on a bad day, debate Trump, means he will not be trustworthy dealing with Putin or Xi in a crisis. So, legally, it is Harris.
You could say that dealing with Putin or Xi, Biden has Sullivan and Blinken in the room, and I agree. But think about how Biden explains this to the nation. He gives a speech saying that he has a serious medical problem. As soon as he utters those words, he’s gained enormous sympathy. Hanging onto power, when he admits to good days and bad days mentally, makes no patriotic sense, and would destroy the sympathy his administration just earned for brutal honesty. So Harris should take the oath of office that day.
People on this thread are more interested in the election than in who is president for the next six months. But it should not be treated as if the election is the greatest priority.
I expect that a President constitutionally qualified for another term can gain the support of their party for the nomination. But one step at a time.
It has to be Harris. She’s the only one who can access the money. Also I have no doubt she could wipe the floor with Trump in a debate.She has the ability to fact check him ion real time. In addition, she could point out that Trump will be older than Biden was when he was elected in 2020.
Newsom is charismatic and good-looking but I don’t trust him. Two words: Kimberly Guilfoyle. That just screams poor judgement, not to mention the cheating, the alcoholism, etc.
Let’s be honest, we aren’t ready for a Jewish president at this time. I always thought we would have one before a black president but I have come to realize that this country is much more bigoted than I thought.
I am interested in who Harris’ BP would be. It should be a white guy with executive experience but again not Newsom because of the state problem and because Willie Brown basically trained them both. Kaine would be a good choice but he’s toxic from 2016.
Kamala Harris is the only one who could keep Biden’s campaign structure and funds, based on my understanding of FEC guidelines. So it would have to be Harris. Starting from scratch this late would be nigh-impossible.
I agree. Let Kamala be President for the weeks before the convention. She would be able to put some arguments against her to rest, assuming she performed competently and with confidence.
I haven’t seen the news for the last forty-five minutes–but I’m predicting that since the first sitting member of Congress (Lloyd Doggett of Texas) has come forward to ask Biden to step down, there will be more today. And even more tomorrow.
The Biden campaign stated this morning that they will report $240 MILLION cash-on-hand in the Biden/Harris Presidential Campaign Committee as of the end of June. That money can only be expended to support the election of the two names on the tin. Other sources of funding such as Democratic-aligned SuperPACs could more easily redirect their spending. If there were a new non-Harris candidate, the most the existing presidential campaign committee could do is return funds to donors and request that they redonate them to the new candidate’s new presidential campaign committee.
Actually, this isn’t something I worry about. I feel like the operation of the government is doing fine, and would continue to work fine through a crisis. My only concern is winning in November, and putting forward the Democratic candidate with the best chance of beating Trump.
If the current VP gets the nod, the open bigotry will expand exponentially, and the major news networks, in the interest of not losing viewership (but poorly described as being fair and equal), will give both sides a voice.
I don’t think money matters as much these days as it did, say, 40 years ago. By this point, Trump is as well-known a commodity as could be. We’re eight years into the Trump era and you either love the guy or hate him. America knows Trump inside and out. Advertising isn’t going to budge much either direction.
Even if a new Democrat entered the race with little funding, he or she’d still get the entire anti-Trump vote by virtue of being the (D). That, and the media would have a frenzy of coverage on the new candidate - plus, in today’s feverish era, it’s not hard to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in donations on short notice.
So if Biden is ditched in favor of someone other than Kamala, it still likely won’t amount to much disadvantage.