Democratic Convention Rules Committee, the committee that will determine the rules for the party’s nomination, is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, to discuss the nomination framework.
The committee’s Co-chairs; Governor Tim Walz and Leah Daughtry, said, “It is now the Committee’s responsibility to implement a framework to select a new nominee, which will be open, transparent, fair, and orderly.”
They added, “The process presented for consideration will be comprehensive, it will be fair, and it will be expeditious.”
Prior to their announcement, Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called on the Democratic Party to nominate Joe Biden’s replacement via an “open process.”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who previously ran against Biden in the primaries before switching to run as an independent, said in a post that he hopes the party will “use neutral polling” to select the strongest candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump, and criticized the party’s handling of the primary process.
“I call on the Democratic Party to return to its traditional commitment to democracy and exemplify it with an open process. Instead of anointing a candidate hand-picked by DNC elites, the party should use neutral polling to identify the candidate who can best beat Donald Trump. The delegates should then select a nominee based on this information.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“If they had done this to begin with, I would not have had to leave the Democratic Party,” he added.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been endorsed by Biden, has gotten more than 500 endorsements from Democratic delegates.
The number is expected to increase.
In a move that would give Harris access to the campaign funds, the Biden-Harris campaign amended filings with the Federal Election Commission to rename its principal committee and declare Harris a candidate for president.
In another sign of how the Biden team has quickly shifted to its new task ahead, @BidenHQ, the social media rapid response account on X for the Biden-Harris campaign, has officially been rebranded to @KamalaHQ.
Democrat donations spiked sharply following Biden’s announcement. The Democratic online fundraising platform, ActBlue announced that Democrats had donated $46.7m in the seven hours since Biden’s announcement, saying it was the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 election cycle.
Democratic Nomination Battle Unlikely
Citing a “formidable list” of governors and senators already endorsing Kamala Harris, Ron Brownstein, a senior political analyst for an American news agency, said that he believes a battle for the Democratic nomination is unlikely.
“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,” Brownstein stated.
“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 Vice President Harris.”
Ron Brownstein
Brownstein said that Harris has two paths for her running mate; “balance the ticket, or double down.”
“The most traditional thing to do would be to balance the ticket with a White male elected official from a key swing state,” Brownstein said, adding that the list would include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
Alternatively, Brownstein suggested that Harris could pick Gretchen Whitmer as her running mate “to create a high risk, potentially high reward all-female ticket, which would certainly generate a lot of excitement.”
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