What to expect when a presidential candidate withdraws during the U.S. election process.
On July 21, 2024, what had somehow become both the inevitable and the unthinkable occurred: A sitting U.S. president who had already secured a commanding lead in the race for delegates to be renominated decided to (somewhat) voluntarily exit the race. Following President Biden’s monumental decision, we at Good Authority checked back in with Rick Pildes, the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU. Rick had previously commented for us in 2016 (reprinted again in 2020, and one of the most-read TMC posts ever) about what happens if a presidential candidate exits the race at various points in the electoral process.
Tucker: Biden had accumulated enough delegates for the nomination but it is before the Democratic National convention has met – so that puts us in the “in between voting in the primaries and the national convention” phase of the political process. Can you remind us of the rules surrounding how delegates can vote at the convention now that Biden has dropped out?
Pildes: The Democratic National Committee’s rules permit delegates to vote their conscience, even if their states’ voters selected a particular candidate. So Democratic convention delegates would be free to vote for whomever they might prefer. They are not required to vote for Biden’s choice for his successor, Kamala Harris. Nor would they be required to anoint the chosen candidate of party leaders and luminaries.
For now, the superdelegates – DNC members and elected officials who officially attend the convention without representing a candidate – cannot vote in the first round, but they can beginning in the second round. If the vote at the convention makes it to a second round – which would mean that no candidate had secured a majority of votes in the first round of voting – that would likely involve intense intraparty discussions, arguments, efforts to build coalitions and the like.
I think the most interesting point about superdelegates, though, is that we saw in essence their resurrection as effective actors, with Biden ultimately deciding to withdraw because leading party figures convinced him to do so. Even if the rules formally limit these party figures to voting only on a second ballot at the convention, they stepped in before the convention to change the direction of the party. In a strong sense, we have seen a return of the “peer review” system that the 1970s reforms had eliminated; party leaders saw the direction the party was heading and decided a different candidate gave the party the best chance at winning.
OK, those are the rules. But what do you expect to happen in practice?
Remember, the delegates have been carefully chosen by the various primary candidates to be sure to support those candidates. So with Biden out, there’s a good chance we would expect many of the Biden delegates to likely want to honor his wishes by supporting Harris. Similarly, if the party manages to coalesce before the convention of a unifying candidate – as appears to be happening as of the time of this writing with Harris – we might also expect most of the delegates to coordinate on Harris as well in an effort to put forward a unified front going into the November elections. All this could change if a strong competitor emerges to Harris, but in the early days, there does not seem to be any sign of that.
So far this campaign season, we’ve seen an attempted assassination of one candidate and the other one drop out of the race despite being the incumbent president – and it’s not even the end of July. What other unexpected developments are you thinking might materialize in what is shaping up to be an election year quite unlike any other?
It’s hard to speculate about unexpected developments. Given Donald Trump’s age, I suppose one could speculate about whether any health issues might emerge for him. A foreign war that would draw the United States in more deeply might be another source of unexpected developments, or perhaps major negative economic shocks could possibly be as well.
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Read Rick Pildes’ previous post here:
What happens if a U.S. presidential candidate withdraws or dies before the election or inauguration?
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