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      Kamala Harris must be chosen through an ‘open convention’. It is the democratic way | David Sirota

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      Joe Biden has never been the greatest orator or had the strongest political backbone, but he has always displayed one important skill throughout his decades in office: representing the center of the Democratic party, wherever that center may be at any given time.It explains why he followed his party’s ideological journey and went from liberal Democrat in the 1980s to conservative austerian in the 1990s to Iraq war proponent in the 2000s to mildly progressive economic populist in this era. It also explains his announcement on Sunday that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race.Biden knew rank-and-file Democrats wanted him to step down (for good reason), and he made the belated but responsible decision to respect that demand – and potentially save the country from Donald Trump.Biden will be lauded as making a courageous choice. But while it is obviously the right one, the president is hardly a hero in this history-making moment. He and his political machine created this political crisis. They waged a war on Democratic dissent. They brushed off those raising questions about the president’s electoral viability, punished dissenters, killed off any possibility of a contested presidential primary, covered up Biden’s health condition, and then tried to cling to power when everyone in the country saw his decline with their own eyes at the first presidential debate.In the process, they delayed the possibility of a unified front, allowing Trump and the Republican party to pretend their corporate agenda is populist, while Democrats increasingly looked like sad reality-denying, norm-defending losers aping trite cliches from Aaron Sorkin scripts. Biden and his apparatchiks also damaged the credibility of Democratic politicians who publicly insisted everything was fine, when the entire country could see that it wasn’t.But the damage is not necessarily permanent. To cite an overused phrase, Democrats can still be unburdened by what has been – but only if they don’t repeat their past mistakes.Election-wise, Biden’s decision is a godsend for those who don’t want to see another Trump term. Polls have shown many potential Democratic candidates in a stronger position against Trump than Biden had been. That includes Vice-President Kamala Harris, who Biden has endorsed.Assuming a new Democratic ticket includes a popular figure from a winnable swing states who can bring some pugilism to the ticket (perhaps someone like this guy), the party seems in a strong position to win – and Maga almost certainly knows that.“The Trump campaign, from day one, has been built not to run against a generic Democrat – it’s been built to run a very specific race against a very specific opponent in Joe Biden,” the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta recently said in a recent interview about his reporting on Republicans’ campaign.“Everything that they were engineering inside of this campaign, going back months and months and months, it was all very specific to defeating Biden. And so once you’ve done that work … the only thing that could ruin your best-laid plans is if that guy who you’ve been preparing to run against suddenly isn’t on the ballot any more.”But exactly how Democrats select the ballot replacement is potentially pivotal.Though a coronation could produce a winning candidate, it is a risky gambit. Donors, power brokers, and politicians reprising history in a smoke-filled backroom in Chicago to install a nominee could not only undercut Democrats’ claim to be campaigning to “protect democracy” – they could also rob the nominee of needed legitimacy and enthusiasm.Though an open convention isn’t a perfect form of democracy, it is at least a democratic process. Requiring Harris and any other potential candidates to actually compete for the support of delegates elected from every community in the country is a way to battle test the eventual nominee. It will force them to solicit support and make a case for their prospective candidacies.As important: it will force potential nominees to contend with inconvenient questions about their records before they are irreversibly locked in as the general election nominee against Trump, who will inevitably raise those questions on his own.Biden should have faced such battle testing in a competitive presidential primary, so that the party could have seen his weaknesses and found someone else before now. But the Democratic machine used its power to prevent such a competition, which ultimately created this moment of peril.Party bosses now shutting down any kind of competitive process in an open convention could be a dangerous repeat of that same mistake just a few months before the November election.As Biden has faced growing pressure to withdraw, some have worried that this was a stealth coup by the donor class that saw Biden’s cognitive decline as a political opportunity to dethrone an administration whose policies challenge the power of billionaires and corporations. Biden’s allies tried to fan the flames of these concerns, at one point casting the push for Biden to withdraw as an “elite” plot.There’s definitely reason for concern. Biden is no hero of the left, and some of his policies (see: Israel-Gaza) have been downright abhorrent. But he has also pushed some of the best and most populist economic policies of any president in 50 years.His American Rescue Plan laudably discarded Obama-era austerity and was the largest investment in the working class in generations. By historical standards, his Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Labor have been bolder regulators than any in a half century. And while he refused to fight for something better, his climate legislation included some groundbreaking investments that were desperately needed.All of this – plus Biden’s push to raise taxes on the wealthy – are indeed anathema to America’s oligarchy, and there is no doubt they would prefer that the next Democratic president return to the neoliberal agenda of the Clinton-Obama eras.But just because donors were among the many voices calling for Biden to withdraw, that doesn’t mean their policy preferences will automatically become the new Democratic platform – as Biden himself proved.Let’s remember: Biden was never a conviction politician like a Bernie Sanders or a Paul Wellstone, ideologically committed to an economic vision. He was a conservative, corporate-friendly Democrat for much of his career because he was a thumb-in-the-wind politician and corporate forces had done the organizing, lobbying, and narrative-shaping to make such odious politics mainstream inside the Reagan- and Bush-era Democratic party.Biden as a 2020 candidate and as president broke from that past because the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presidential candidacies as well as labor unions, environmental organizations, antitrust advocates and progressive groups had successfully shifted the center of the Democratic party to make neoliberal politics more problematic for party leaders to embrace, even if their donors demanded it.The current policy challenge, then, is keeping that new center moored where it now is – and building from it.Part of that effort has to do with the short-term work of making sure the specific replacement nominee isn’t some retrograde neoliberal throwback who triangulates against the Democratic base and discards the very policy agenda that has kept the party competitive, even amid Biden’s demise. There are surely powerful corporate-aligned factions in the Democratic coalition that would like to see that surrender happen.The longer-term work is about making sure any future Democratic administration feels compelled to continuously champion as many or more forward-thinking policies as Biden has been forced to embrace.That’s the real opportunity of this moment – and the work begins now.

      David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Lever. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter More

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      The Guardian view on Joe Biden quitting the race: a fresh start for Democrats | Editorial

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      Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday marked the beginning of the end of an American political life filled with second acts. None was more remarkable than his defeat of Donald Trump in 2020. His acceptance that he could not do so again will burnish what his vice-president on Monday described as an “unmatched” legacy. Elected to relief rather than elation, as the man saving the US from a second Trump term, he became the president who helped it recover from the pandemic, pushed through a landmark green infrastructure package and sought to shape a fairer economy.He could now be a lame duck, beset by Republican attacks on his capacity to continue as commander-in-chief. But he could cement his record, emboldened by the certainty of departure from office. His decision to quit his re-election bid was belated, yet in sharp contrast to Mr Trump’s delusional egotism.Kamala Harris now appears as queen of the comeback. She floundered in the race for the 2020 nomination and was seen to struggle as vice-president, though few shine in that role. Yet Mr Biden has endorsed her as his successor, as have other top Democrats, including potential challengers. Not much more than 100 days before the election – and with early voting beginning in just two months – few want to snub her and take chances on a little-known alternative, especially if it complicates campaign finances.Ms Harris would not only be the first woman of colour to win a presidential nomination. She would be a 59-year-old running against an often incoherent 78-year-old; a voice of warmth against a vindictive demagogue; a former prosecutor running against a convicted criminal. A woman who has staunchly advocated abortion rights would take on the man who ensured Roe v Wade was overturned – and whose running mate has extreme views on abortion, pushing for police to have access to reproductive health records. She has been somewhat more critical of Israel over the war in Gaza than Mr Biden, perhaps shoring up progressive support. And people have regretted underestimating her: she had Mr Biden on the ropes over his attitude to segregationist senators and opposition to school integration policies in a 2019 debate, and skewered William Barr, Mr Trump’s attorney-general, in a Senate hearing.There is nonetheless a strong case for an open convention – reportedly the preference of Barack Obama and some donors. Some fear that the party is repeating the mistake it has just made with Mr Biden: ignoring qualms because it assumes it has no choice. Ms Harris is familiar to voters, unlike potential rivals, but unpopular. Polls suggest she outperforms Mr Biden in a contest with Mr Trump, but doesn’t erase the latter’s small lead – and does more poorly in battleground states. Republicans are already turning her thankless task of overseeing border issues against her, and accuse her of covering up her boss’s frailty.A contest for the nomination carries some risks – Democrats don’t want to see their nominee damaged by a bruising process – but it could generate excitement, push Mr Trump out of the limelight and produce a strong running mate. If delegates rallied behind Ms Harris, that would strengthen her bid. If another candidate proved even stronger, all the better.Democrats rightly believe that this election could prove existential for American democracy. But that hasn’t proved sufficiently persuasive for voters. Polls suggest that they want change, and were uninspired by Mr Biden’s request to let him “finish the job”. The Democratic nominee must grasp the opportunity born of his debate disaster and create the sense of a fresh start, not only for the party’s campaign, but for the US itself. More

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      Kamala Harris – and Democrats – face an unprecedented task with 100 days to election

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      When Joe Biden addressed the NAACP convention in Las Vegas last week, one of his biggest applause lines – a line that set off chants of “Four more years!” – was when he praised Kamala Harris as “not only a great vice-president” but someone who “could be president of the United States”.Now she has that chance.On Sunday, when the president made the extraordinary decision to end his re-election campaign, he made an equally momentous choice: to offer his “full support and endorsement” of Harris to be the Democratic nominee and take on Donald Trump in November.“It’s time to come together and beat Trump,” the 81-year-old president said. “Let’s do this.”The announcement, just weeks before the Democrats are set to formally choose their nominee at the convention in Chicago, has plunged an already tumultuous contest deeper into unchartered waters – while thrusting his would-be successor into the spotlight.“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”With just over 100 days until the November election, the task before her is monumental and unprecedented. An assassination attempt on Trump has united Republicans behind him, and appears to have strengthened his hand as Democrats dissolved into a rancorous debate over Biden’s fitness to serve.The question of who would replace Biden has consumed Democrats and party strategists, allowing for an intense public discussion over whether Harris would be the strongest candidate to defeat Trump in November.The US-born daughter of immigrants, Harris spent much of her career as a prosecutor, before becoming California’s attorney general, overseeing the nation’s second largest justice system. In 2016, she was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first south Asian American and only the second Black woman to serve in the chamber, where she distinguished herself for asking tough questions of Trump-era political nominees.Many of Harris’s supporters say she is the obvious heir apparent to Biden. She is also the administration’s strongest messenger on abortion rights, a top issue for many voters, especially women.But her skeptics point to her failed 2019 bid for the Democratic nomination, which lacked cohesion and vision, and her shaky start to the vice-presidency, which opened her to withering Republican criticism. Some Democrats are not necessarily opposed to Harris, but believe she would benefit from an open competition – rather than a “coronation” – to prove to party skeptics, donors and voters she is the best candidate for the job.They say a fast primary campaign would showcase to the American people that Harris is best person for the job, and give would-be contenders a chance to compete – or at least debut as potential running mates.By anointing Harris, Biden has greatly tipped the scale in her favor. But it does not automatically make her the nominee.Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, called the situation “unprecedented” but said the party was committed to carrying out a “transparent and orderly process”.In a remarkable change of course after weeks of infighting, Democrats rushed to throw their support behind Harris, including a wide swath of members of Congress; Hillary Clinton, the first major female presidential nominee; and some would-be opponents like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California; Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation; and Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor. On Monday, Joe Manchin, the one-time Democratic senator turned independent, said he had no plans to vie for the party’s presidential nomination.Harris has a handful of advantages over other potential challengers. She has been vetted at the national level and has good name recognition. As Biden’s running mate, she would also likely inherit key parts of his campaign, which includes a large war chest of donor funding and massive field operation.On Sunday, Biden’s campaign fund was renamed “Harris for President”, a filing with the Federal Elections Commission showed. As of Saturday, the campaign had nearly $96m cash on hand, according to the FEC. And donors who abandoned Biden in an effort to push him from the race could restart their contributions to a presidential campaign led by a younger candidate.Harris may also benefit from Democrats’ desperate desire to unite quickly and turn the focus back on Trump, whom they view as an existential threat to American democracy.Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris, assailing her intelligence and her laugh, while mispronouncing her first name. On Sunday, Trump called Harris “as much of a joke” as Biden, and said she had been “complicit” in covering up the president’s decline.View image in fullscreen“Harris has been the enabler-in-chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two,” he said.The former president has a history of amplifying racist and sexist conspiracies about Harris, including a birther lie that suggested, falsely, she might be ineligible to serve as president.The independent candidate Robert F Kennedy also attacked Harris as a “war hawk” on Ukraine and China, and accused her of holding one of the “worst civil rights records of any public official”.Republicans have said they were prepared for a torrent of opposition research on Harris, stemming from her failed 2020 campaign and her years as vice-president.If the attacks ramp up, they could play on Harris’s vulnerabilities. Recent polling that considered a hypothetical matchup between Harris and Trump found her running close to or stronger than Biden nationally and in the battleground states.Like Biden, Harris is unpopular, though her approval rating has ticked up slightly in the weeks since the party began pressuring Biden to withdraw, following his disastrous debate.“She’s the most unpopular vice-president since Dan Quayle – and Dan Quayle is the most unpopular-vice president since Aaron Burr,” Frank Luntz, a pollster and consultant, said recently. Burr, remembered as the vice-president who mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton, served under Thomas Jefferson at the turn of the 19th century.Harris’s supporters say her historic nomination could help inspire and mobilize Democrats who had so far been disillusioned by their options.Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Democratic-aligned Voters of Tomorrow, said Harris’s tour of US college campuses was “incredibly well-received” and helped her understand the unique needs of young people, who polls show are disillusioned with the entire political system.“We saw the ‘Kamalove’ that gen Z feels for her and we’re incredibly excited to have a younger, more diverse face representing the incredibly successful and pro youth Biden Harris agenda,” he said, pointing to the “coconut tree” memes spreading online in an ironic but earnest show of support.At nearly every stage of her career, Harris has broken barriers, and should she win the nomination, “the nation will watch a multiracial woman compete in a presidential general election for the first time in history,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Center for American Women and Politics. “This transformative moment will forever alter how Americans view leadership in politics.”Biden’s decision to withdraw, and Harris’s commitment to seeking the presidential nomination, means the Democratic ticket is also in need of a vice-presidential candidate. Should Harris be the nominee, several names have been floated including the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who endorsed the vice-president on Sunday, as well as the governors of Kentucky, Andy Beshear; Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, who also endorsed Harris; and North Carolina, Roy Cooper.Democratic groups had already organized an effort to boost Harris’s image and defend her against the Trump attacks that would have come regardless of her position on the ticket. Among them is Way to Win, a Democratic donor network that endorsed Harris.Tory Gavito, the organization’s president and co-founder, said the vice-president performed especially well with young people and voters of color, key constituencies that Democrats have struggled to excite.With Biden’s decision to pass the torch to Harris, she likened the Democratic party to an Olympic sprinter crouching at the starting line.“All this wait period has just given us that sort of kinetic energy to now run,” she said. “And I think it’s going to just un-tap a bunch of enthusiasm that gets us ready for November.”Read more about Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election:

      Joe Biden drops out and endorses Kamala Harris

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      ‘Oh thank God’: Democratic swing state voters feel relief after Biden drops out

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      For many Democratic swing state voters, Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election came as a relief.“Oh thank God,” said Cathy Gramze, a retired nurse who lives in the suburbs of Detroit. “My diagnosis has for a long time been that he cannot run again and I am not entirely sure that he should finish his term in office.”Gramze had worried about Biden’s fitness long before the debate. His 27 June performance merely confirmed what she had long feared. “A lot of the time he is the president we need, but some of the time he isn’t.”Kamala Harris, who Biden endorsed on Sunday and who has earned the endorsement of most prominent Democratic elected officials, “needs to be the presidential nominee”, Gramze said.For more than a year, voters across the political spectrum have been saying they feel Biden, who is 81 years old, is too old to run for re-election. Those anxieties crescendoed in the wake of his first debate with Donald Trump, in which Trump lied repeatedly about a range of issues and Biden struggled to push back or even answer questions coherently. Following the debate, more than 30 Democrats in Congress called on Biden to end his presidential campaign, with the powerful former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly ratcheting up the pressure on Biden to drop out of the race last week.In the last few weeks, polling has increasingly shown Biden lagging in critical swing states, with large majorities of Democratic party voters indicating they believe he should not renew his campaign. Recent national polls also show Trump losing to the vice-president, whose path to victory, like Biden’s, will involve winning the critical states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.Not only Democrats welcomed the announcement. Dan Rose, who has long supported Trump, said he was glad Biden pulled out of the race.“He doesn’t have the caliber we need in a president,” said Rose, who said he worries about the economy. Rose, who is from De Pere, Wisconsin, said he will still support Trump but felt Biden had made the right choice in ending his campaign. “The Democrats might be in a pickle now,” he added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf the Democrats are in a pickle, few grassroots party members expressed concern following Biden’s announcement.“How courageous and brave of him to do that,” said Chris Fleming, who is retired and volunteers for a group organizing rural Democratic voters in Wisconsin. This year, Fleming’s husband had $15,000 in student debt cancelled by the Biden administration – which she said left her feeling grateful for Biden. “I have nothing but respect for him,” she said.Jake Knashishu, an attorney from Decatur, Georgia, said Biden’s departure from the race “relieved, for the most part, concerns about him being able to really present himself as an effective alternative to Trump”. Biden’s withdrawal gives Democrats a better shot at Georgia, Knanishu said.He had spoken with a neighbor on Sunday who “saw Joe Biden as kind of Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2.0 – holding on and refusing to pass the torch and maintain stability”, said Knashishu. “She just feels relieved, because she knows that at least we’re not going to have that happen again.” More

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      As Biden departs, Trump set to face questions over his age and acuity

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      With 78-year-old Donald Trump now certain to face a Democratic candidate younger than he is, the Republican could have the tables turned on him over the questions of age and mental agility that he often sidestepped while Joe Biden was his opponent.The age gap between Trump and any of his likely Democrat opponents – Kamala Harris, 59; Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, 52; Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, 51 – could make him the sole focus of voters’ desire for a generational handover of power.And with Biden’s often stumbling public appearances – and especially his disastrous debate – now a thing of the past, there is likely to be a fresh focus on Trump’s mental acuity and his frequently rambling, confused campaign speeches.Last month, for example, Trump got the name of his own doctor wrong. Previously he has made high-profile campaign trail gaffes, in which he seemed to think Barack Obama was still president and mistook his arch Republican rival Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi.Nearly 60% of US voters said last month that Biden should “definitely” or “probably” be replaced, while Trump’s favorability rating had risen to 40% since his hush-money conviction and the attempt on his life eight days ago. Harris’s favorability sits at around 39%.Biden’s departure from the ticket upends several aspects of Republican’s calculations, including that Trump the felon will now possibly have to debate Harris the former prosecutor in September – if she receives the nomination.The vice-president proved her debating skills in 2019 when she delivered a highly personal attack on Biden on the issue of race that he later described as “hurtful” and chilled relations between the Biden-Harris camps before she was named vice-president.Political commentator Anthony Michael Kreis posted on Twitter/X soon after Biden’s announcement: “I can’t believe the GOP is running an old guy for president. Yikes.”Trump’s reaction to his recent assassination attempt – pumping his fist and mouthing “Fight, fight, fight!” – has been full of vigor and helped unify his Republican party behind him and after his brush with death, he vowed to run a “unity” campaign.But that pledge dissolved on Saturday when he returned to disparaging Biden, Harris and the Democratic agenda and has been delivering his usual rants on the campaign trail, often laced with conspiracy theories and even a repeated and bizarre reference to a shark.After Biden announced he would abandon his re-election effort, Trump responded to Biden’s announcement, saying his now ex-rival was not fit to run for president and “not fit to serve”.Trump said last week he didn’t think that switching out Biden for Harris “would make much difference”, he told Bloomberg. “I would define her in a very similar [way] that I define him.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA pro-Trump Super Pac accused Harris on Sunday of being “in on” a cover-up of Biden’s “mental decline”, and characterized her as the driving force behind the administration’s policies.Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf says that Trump’s “less than gracious” response to Biden stepping down is something Democrats will hope continues as a successor to Biden emerges. “Trump is reverting to type, Biden is out of the picture, and Trump is the only one who can seize defeat from the jaws of victory.“Without having Biden as his opponent, and calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’, who is he going to rail against? How he attacks a woman is very different but you can already tell from the way he attacked Biden on Sunday that he’s not thinking clearly. His vitriol has taken over again.“Democrats will be able to use Harris as an offensive chess piece in the suburbs of the country, women’s right to chose and reproductive freedom, and hope that Trump screws up by overreacting so they can accuse him of bring incapable of controlling himself because of his age,” Sheinkopf said, “and it becomes a different race.”Read more about Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election:

      Joe Biden drops out and endorses Kamala Harris

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      Who will replace Biden? How does the process work?

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      Biden withdrawal throws spotlight on to role of Democratic delegates

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      It’s been more than 50 years since delegates to a Democratic national convention haven’t known their nominee as they walked through the door. Now, in the wake of Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday not to seek re-election, there’s a mad dash.Delegates are due to convene in Chicago on 19 August, and while the Democratic party seems to be coalescing around Kamala Harris, there’s no guarantee that she will be the nominee, and others could still throw their name into contention.But just a few hours after Biden’s announcement, Google documents were circulating asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris.Jonathan Padilla, a delegate from California, said he could stand for things to be a hair less mad.“I don’t want to be rushed into something,” Padilla said. “I do want to have deliberation. There’s a lot of frustration in the party, and I think having a process to talk to people from the campaign and to the candidate or people around her is necessary … to help us be unified in November.”Delegates are, by and large, local volunteers expected to spend thousands of dollars to fly to Chicago and attend the convention. It’s often viewed as a reward for activism and dedication, but it’s typically a far less consequential role than it might be next month.One delegate who isn’t yet old enough to drink expressed his mounting anxiety about how things are unfolding and how little has been predictable.“I’m a young, young person,” said the delegate, who requested anonymity because he feared being replaced by his state chair. “This is my first convention … And this is scary. It’s super anxiety-inducing, and crazy, and so much.”He said he was disappointed with the party for communicating poorly. “But at the same time, I don’t really feel like I have time to be disappointed. I feel like I just need to go knock on some doors.”In a “normal” election year, each state sends a number of delegates to the convention who have been pledged to a candidate. Those delegates are expected to vote for that candidate , on pain of being replaced by a state chair if their vote is wayward. With a majority going to one candidate, as has happened every election year since the 60s, that’s the end of it. A candidate is chosen.That bureaucratic, uncontroversial process has become an open question this year.In a call on Friday, before Biden dropped out, Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the party’s rules committee, likened the process of selecting a new presidential nominee to a mini-primary, with delegates as the voting audience. If Biden were to drop out, the process would be “scrunched into three weeks or something. It’d be incredibly tight.” The question at the convention would then become whether a consensus had formed on a new nominee.But that’s not exactly what’s happening right now. Instead, members of the California Democratic party have begun circulating a Google document asking delegates to pledge their support for Harris publicly and immediately. According to the list, shared with the Guardian by a delegate, 83 people had already signed on as of 9pm on Sunday. A second Google document is circulating to delegates with a form for pledging their support for Harris on a petition. Before the start of the convention, the Democratic National Committee is also planning to hold a virtual roll call , where a nominee would be chosen for legal purposes.View image in fullscreenOhio presents a problem. State law ostensibly requires parties to select their nominees by 9 August to appear on the ballot. Ohio lawmakers changed the law this year, but Democrats worry that the change won’t take effect in time.Padilla said he expected Harris to be the nominee, but some delegates are unhappy with the pressure for an early decision.“Vice-President Harris has the next 72 to 96 hours to mitigate any serious challenge,” he said. “And pending that, I think the party moves forward with the existing plan of the virtual roll call, which would mitigate risk at the convention, but it does probably leave a lot of delegates who would want a more transparent, deliberative process probably not happy.”Susan Herder, a Biden delegate from Minneapolis, said she thought Biden might be the best president of her lifetime, crediting him with turning the country around from Covid-19 and an economy in which the wealth gap had widened.After the debate and Biden’s exit, she’s ready to start campaigning for Harris. She said she intended to respect all voters and would listen to them to understand their points of view.“I am looking forward to the future,” she said in an email. “I hope everyone who is inclined will help us elect Kamala Harris. It’s a great way to defeat anxiety, fear and feelings of hopelessness. LET’S GET HER ELECTED!”While some delegates have only just come around to supporting someone other than Biden, others had been pushing for a change during the primaries, long before Biden’s disastrous debate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I think we were feeling like our message has become even stronger in the past few hours,” said Asma Mohammed, leader of Minnesota’s “uncommitted” movement and a Democratic convention delegate. “In the past few hours, there are people who have reached out and said, ‘You know, you’re right. We needed a better candidate.’”Mohammed has been calling for pushback against the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza, demanding a plank in the party platform that calls for a ceasefire, an arms embargo and a president ready to support that position. She believes Harris is more sympathetic to her position than Biden was, despite having taking $5m in campaign donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), but wants time to put the question to her.“We are delegates from our communities, and we are being asked to represent,” Mohammed said. “We can’t do that if we’re only being given one option.”A degree of dissent against the virtual roll call had percolated up from delegates days ago. Delegates Are Democracy and Welcome Party, two organizations formed in recent days to help inform confused delegates about their options, have been hosting webinars, airing concerns from delegates about a convoluted process.Chris Dempsey, head of Delegates Are Democracy, said he had been speaking with dozens of delegates who say the process is opaque and that party leaders have been gatekeeping information. He stressed that Delegates for Democracy had not been advocating for Biden to withdraw, but was instead trying to guide delegates, who are often volunteers without deep legal training, about the rules.“We think that conventions are essential at putting forward strong nominees,” Dempsey said. “We can beat Donald Trump in November. But we know that we need credible sources of information to share with delegates. We want to be a place that delegates, the public, the media can come and get good information about how the process works.”Kamarck noted in a call on Friday that delegates were already free to vote for whoever they wanted, more or less. The convention rules contain a loophole, she said.“The loophole is ‘in all good conscience’. That was added after the very, very difficult and bitter 1980 convention.”At that convention, Senator Ted Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter in primaries and then a floor fight. At the time, delegates could be removed by state leaders if they changed their vote. The conscience clause emerged after that, to prevent delegates from acting like robots, Kamarck said.“On the Democratic side, there is no such thing as Joe Biden releasing his delegates,” Kamarck said. “And Joe Biden gets this. I don’t know why the rest of the press doesn’t get it. Joe Biden said in his Nato press conference: ‘The delegates can do whatever the hell they want to do.’ And that is basically true.” The delegate rules require their votes to “reflect the sentiments” of those who elected them.That phrase had never really been tested, Kamarck said. Until now.Biden’s withdrawal has set off a hunt for delegates, Kamarck said. Again, in a “normal” process, that hunt would start on the floor of the convention, with potential candidates soliciting signatures on a petition to get on a nomination ballot, with no more than 50 from any one state and 300 delegates to make the ballot.“I suspect that somebody from the [Democratic National Committee (DNC)] or the state parties would organize delegate meetings that would be open to the public – because all DNC meetings are open to the public – for the candidates to come and talk to the delegates, because they’d have to win over the delegates,” she said.The nomination for vice-president would be based on a separate vote, she said on Friday. “I imagine what would happen is that whoever emerged as the frontrunner – and maybe there’d be two or three of them – would all name their vice-presidential candidates. But then we’d have an open vote for vice-president. It could get quite confusing. But this assumes, all of this assumes, that there’s a contest. And I for one am very skeptical that there’ll be much of a contest.” More

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      US election live updates: top Democrats back Kamala Harris as donations surge after Biden steps aside

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      All 50 state Democratic party chairs have endorsed Harris to be the party’s new presidential nominee to run against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump, Reuters reports.The chairs held a conference call after President Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside as the party’s candidate.“Following President Biden’s announcement, our members immediately assembled to unite behind the candidate who has a track record of winning tough elections, and who is a proven leader on the issues that matter to Americans: reproductive freedom, gun violence prevention, climate protection, justice reform, and rebuilding the economy,” said Ken Martin, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, in a statement.When the Democratic National Convention meets in Chicago on 17 August, any nominee for president needs to secure the votes of 1,986 delegates. Joe Biden had more than 3,800 delegate pledged to vote for him after the primary season, but those people are now released from that obligation.Kamala Harris has, according to the latest count by website The Hill, already secured votes from 531 delegates, with the states of Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida and Louisiana all offering support.Deborah Cole is a Berlin correspondent for the GuardianGermany’s mainstream political class expressed respect and a degree of relief over president Joe Biden stepping aside in the race given deep-seated fears for Europe about a win by Donald Trump in November.The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who had only recently expressed strong support for Biden’s bid for a second term, praised Biden’s tough call, posting to social media to say “My friend Joe Biden has achieved a lot: for his country, for Europe, for the world. Thanks to him, transatlantic cooperation is close, Nato is strong and the US is a good and reliable partner for us. His decision not to run again deserves respect.”The vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, echoed the remarks, voicing “great esteem” for Biden and his choice to stand down. Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who opposes a second Trump term, also said he had “great respect” for Biden’s decision to end his lifetime of political service in January.However the CDU’s deputy parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei warned against “euphoria” about a potential run by Kamala Harris. He told public broadcaster RBB she had “failed” to develop her own strong profile in office, meaning the switch of candidate might fail to materialise as an “act of liberation” for the Democrats.Thomas Jäger, a political scientist at the University of Cologne, criticised the chaotic way Biden made the bombshell announcement, catching his party on the backfoot. “He let them run into an open knife … it almost seemed like an act of revenge” on those he felt had betrayed him, he said.Jäger told rolling news channel NTV he expected the “voices to grow louder” for Biden to step down immediately as president, with scrutiny of his fitness growing even stronger now that he’s tried to hand the baton to Harris.He said it was “very very optimistic” to believe that Harris as nominee would mark a “breakthrough” for the Democrats, given her weak profile and short time left to campaign.Our picture desk has put together this gallery of Joe Biden’s political career from when he first became a senator in 1972 to the present day.Reuters is reporting that US stock index futures climbed on Monday on the news that president Joe Biden was withdrawing from the election.The news agency quotes Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics saying “Donald Trump is still the solid favorite to win the presidential election, but betting markets suggest he has a slightly lower probability of beating Harris rather than Biden.“Harris will have a real chance to sell herself to the American public in the second presidential debate, currently scheduled for 10 September, although the Trump campaign could withdraw, not wanting to go toe-to-toe with the ex-attorney.”Reuters states that investers are braced for high volatility this week, and notes that shares of Trump-linked stocks such as Trump Media & Technology Group and software firm Phunware were up.CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein has said he thinks the Democratic party is likely to pick Kamala Harris, as “it’s just hard to imagine there is the stomach for a full-fledged second fight to bypass her”.He told the news network:
      The Democratic party has just gone through a very traumatic episode of nudging aside a president who they respect, who they think has been more successful than many expected, but whom the vast majority of them had come to believe cannot win and did not feel comfortable about re-nominating him for four more years.
      After going through all of that, it’s just hard to imagine there is the stomach for a full-fledged second fight to bypass her. Especially with the candidates who might have the best chance – like Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom – already indicating they won’t run against Harris.
      My colleague Joan E Greve has this explainer of what happens next in the nomination process now that Joe Biden has stepped aside …German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has said Joe Biden’s decision to step aside showed he was willing to put his country’s interests above his own, Reuters reports.It quotes her saying “I have great respect for the US president’s decision. Biden has also done an incredible amount for transatlantic relations, and not just during his term as president.”Hugo Lowell reports for the Guardian on what the latest developments mean for the Donald Trump campaignDonald Trump is scrambling to pivot his campaign against Kamala Harris, with attack ads hitting her current record in office and her past in California, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The Trump campaign is viewing Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee, especially after Biden gave his endorsement, and started preparing opposition research dossiers against her in recent weeks. But as much as Biden’s withdrawal has left Democrats floundering ahead of its nominating convention next month, it has in many ways also flummoxed the Trump campaign.Trump-aligned political action committees such as MAGA Inc will unleash a wave of attacks against Harris, including a $5m television ad in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, casting her as the puppet master in the Biden administration.The Trump campaign was always set up to defeat one person – Biden – and Trump’s allies in recent weeks even pulled punches to keep the president viable as a candidate because they were so keen to run against him.The problem for the Trump campaign is that their best attack lines against Biden, on age and mental acuity, cannot be used and, if anything, they might be reprised by Democrats against Trump given he now will be the oldest candidate.And the millions of dollars that the Trump-aligned Pacs spent creating attack ads against Biden, including one as recently as last week that was centered around Biden’s slip-up at the presidential debate last month about military deaths, have gone to waste.Read more from Hugo Lowell here: Trump scrambles to pivot campaign to attack Kamala HarrisIsrael will be the strongest US ally in the Middle East regardless of who is elected president in November, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.Reuters reports that Netanyahu, speaking to reporters before flying to Washington, said that he would thank president Joe Biden for all he has done for Israel.The Biden administration’s continued provision of resources for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has caused the president to lose some support on the left of his party.If you would like something to listen to about the news that Joe Biden is to step aside from his re-election campaign and has instead endorsed vice-president Kamala Harris to challenge Donald Trump in November, then our Politics Weekly America have a podcast on the topic recorded overnight. Jonathan Freedland is joined by politics reporter Nikki McCann Ramírez to discuss what happens next. You can listen to it here.

      Joe Biden has withdrawn from his presidential re-election race and endorsed vice-president Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket. The extraordinary decision upends American politics and plunges the Democratic nomination into uncertainty just months before the November election against Donald Trump – a candidate Biden has warned is an existential threat to US democracy. Biden said he planned to speak to the nation in more detail later this week

      Harris said she would run for president, and she was “honored” by Biden’s decision to endorse her. “I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

      It is still unclear whether the party will coalesce around Harris, or whether the Democratic national convention will have a floor fight for the nomination. However, all 50 state Democratic party chairs have already endorsed Harris to be the party’s new presidential nominee. Senators Mark Warner, Tammy Baldwin and others quickly offered their support for Harris in messages on Sunday, as did Bill and Hillary Clinton.

      Two of the most likely alternatives to Harris, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, appear to have ruled themselves out of the running

      Democratic leaders quickly heaped praise on the president for his lifetime of service. “Joe understands better than anyone the stakes in this election” wrote Barack Obama. Nancy Pelosi, who reportedly was one of several lawmakers nudging Biden to withdraw, spoke of her “love and gratitude” in a message after the announcement

      Trump, with typical grace, reacted to the news with a vicious attack on Biden and his legacy. “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve – and never was!” the Republican nominee said in a post to his own Truth Social network. The former president rehashed a familiar litany of unsubstantiated grievances in his message. JD Vance, Trump’s newly installed running mate, called Biden “the worst president of my lifetime”
      In today’s First Edition newsletter, my colleague Archie Bland sets out what happens now:While Joe Biden won the Democratic primaries at a canter, his status as the party’s nominee had not yet been officially confirmed. As Joan E Greve sets out in this useful explainer, the delegates who are pledged to vote for Biden at the party’s convention next month will now be released from their obligation.In theory, that could mean an open “floor fight” in which candidates vie for the delegates’ votes. The Democratic National Committee chair, Jaime Harrison, said yesterday that the process would be “transparent and orderly”. The DNC’s rules committee said last night that it would meet on Wednesday to settle on the process.Kamala Harris has no automatic right to Biden’s delegates as his vice-president, but his endorsement plus the explicit support of many prominent figures in the party mean there is a very good chance she will run unopposed, or be a strong favourite even if someone stands against her.In her favour is wariness among the Democratic establishment of a chaotic display to the public in an open battle at the convention – alongside worries that Black and female voters could turn away from the party if Harris were to be denied the nomination that some feel she has already earned.Tat theory will only be tested if a serious rival emerges, which looks increasingly unlikely. One potential candidate, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, quickly said yesterday that she would not stand; another governor, Gavin Newsom of California, has repeatedly said that he would not stand against Harris. Both endorsed her last night, along with more than 100 other elected Democrats.Read more here: Monday briefing – Joe Biden passes the torch – and transforms the race for the presidencyThe Kremlin has responded to Biden stepping aside, saying “a lot can change” in the next four months.“The elections are still four months away, and that is a long period of time in which a lot can change,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the SHOT news outlet.“We need to be patient and carefully monitor what happens. The priority for us is the special military operation,” Peskov said, using the euphemism for the Ukraine war that President Vladimir Putin prefers.Putin had said several times said that he felt Biden was preferable as the future US president to Trump for Russia, even after Biden cast the Kremlin chief as a “crazy SOB”.Russian state television led news bulletins with the news of Biden leaving the election race and Biden’s support for Harris, though it said it was unclear if Harris would earn the Democratic nomination.Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on the Telegram messaging app that he wished Biden good health and added that the goals of the special military operation would be achieved.If Kamala Harris becomes the nominee, then, as said in a 2020 Harris campaign ad shared widely after Biden resigned, Trump will be up against “The Anti-Trump”.Here is a reminder of some of the ways they differ: A prosecutor versus a felon. The first Black person, the first person of South Asian descent, and the first female Vice President in US history, versus a white man. The oldest Presidential candidate in US history versus someone almost 20 years younger than him. The US property mogul who inherited a fortune from his father versus the daughter of a biologist and a university Professor in economics, both of whom are immigrants.On that note, this is Helen Sullivan handing over to my colleague Martin Belam in London.Here is a roundup of this morning’s front pages: More