How Democrats can pick a new candidate, step by step

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Now that U.S. President Joe Biden has decided to end his campaign for re-election, there are two paths for replacing him at the top of the Democratic ticket.

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One is a virtual vote that would lock in a new nominee in early August, and the other is an “open” convention, a scenario the party hasn’t experienced since 1968.

A convention is open when no candidate arrives with a clear majority of delegates, so the event turns into a mini-primary in which contenders scramble to persuade delegates to vote for them.

The potential for chaos is high, and the time is short. Some states have August deadlines to get on the ballot for the general election, and early voting begins in some places in September. So party leaders probably will try to settle the nomination before the Democratic National Convention begins on Aug. 19.

Here’s how the process could play out:

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Who will pick the nominee?

A few thousand delegates representing voters officially decide on the party’s nominee, whether a convention is open or not. Typically they choose the winner of the primaries — that’s what they are sent to do — so it may feel as if the voters choose directly.

But now that Biden has left the race, all of his delegates are free agents and will choose a candidate on their own without voter input.

There are two types of Democratic delegates.

— Pledged delegates commit to supporting the candidate state voters chose, although a “good conscience” clause in the party’s rules gives them a bit of wiggle room.

The party allocates pledged delegates to each state or territory, and state party officials divvy them out to candidates.

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Jurisdictions have different criteria, but in general, almost any registered voter deemed to be loyal to the party and the candidate can be a pledged delegate: Poll workers, local elected officials, fundraisers, even candidates’ kids.

— Automatic delegates, often called superdelegates, are the party’s highest-profile leaders. They have the role because of the offices they hold (or held), and the group includes former presidents and vice-presidents, Democratic governors, members of Congress and party officials.

They are not pledged to any candidate and are not allowed to vote on the first ballot at the convention.

So, we’ll see an open convention?

We could.

If the party goes ahead with a long-planned virtual vote, it could officially lock in the nominee before the convention starts, and the contest would be over.

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Biden has endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, which could strongly tip the scales toward unity. His nearly 3,900 delegates wouldn’t be required to back Harris, but they were chosen for their loyalty to him and may be inclined to do what he asks, especially because she was already on the ticket that the primary voters chose.

The virtual vote is not a typical part of the process. It was largely set up to confirm Biden as the nominee before Ohio’s ballot deadline, which falls before the Democratic convention this year. Ohio legislators resolved the problem, but Democrats had planned to go through with the early vote anyway to avoid any legal challenges that would try to keep Biden off Ohio’s ballot.

However, that allows very little time for the party to coalesce around a new nominee.

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Even if the virtual vote is cancelled, the party could agree on Harris (or, much less likely, another candidate) before the convention. In that case, the convention might technically be considered open, but the proceedings could be as drama-free as usual.

Democratic leaders would be motivated to settle the question quickly so a new nominee can begin a campaign as soon as possible, said Amy K. Dacey, the executive director of the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University and a former CEO of the Democratic National Committee.

“You’re ending a Republican convention where it’s very clear who their nominees are, whose names will appear on the ballot,” Dacey said. “… They now have this moment in time of like 31 days before the Democratic convention, where they have their nominees in place and they’re all campaigning.”

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But if there is no consensus before the delegates arrive in Chicago, the Democrats would have their first open and contested convention since 1968. That one, also in Chicago, went so catastrophically awry that the party overhauled the way it chooses candidates.

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What would an open convention look like?

Just to get their name in the roll-call vote, each candidate would need the signatures of at least 300 delegates, and no more than 50 can come from any one state.

We would probably know early if anyone plans to challenge Harris, Dacey said, citing the short window of time available to drum up wider support. “If I’m somebody who wants to get my name in in a contested convention, the minute I have those 300 names, I’m going to say it,” she said.

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If there are challengers, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring and dealmaking would rev up to warp speed as state party bosses try to corral their delegates into a voting bloc.

Once everyone is in Chicago, candidates and their surrogates probably would blanket not just the convention floor but also hotels, bars and other assorted hidey holes looking for delegates to woo.

Things have gone off the rails in past open conventions, when candidates clawed for every vote.

In a Politico oral history of the 1976 Republican open convention, attendee Tom Korologos, former ambassador to Belgium, recalled a Gerald Ford delegate falling and badly injuring her leg. He said that rather than rushing her to a hospital, other delegates splinted her leg with convention programs and kept her within voting distance because they feared her replacement would cast a ballot for Ronald Reagan. (Ford won the nomination battle but lost the presidency to Democrat Jimmy Carter, who in 1980 lost to Reagan.)

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Soon enough, the first roll-call vote would occur.

If a candidate were to get a majority of delegates’ votes on the first ballot, that person would become the nominee, and everyone could finally relax a little.

But if no one has a majority, a second vote would take place.

At that point, the convention would be considered “brokered,” a term coined in long-ago conventions when party power brokers threw all of their dealmaking, arm-twisting might into finagling votes. There hasn’t been one of those since 1952.

The toned-down 2024 version of that scenario would be that, starting with the second ballot, the superdelegates enter the voting pool.

Voting would continue, round after round, until a candidate gets the votes of a majority of all delegates and would be named the party’s nominee.

While it probably would make good television, party division playing out on the convention floor is hardly the ideal scenario.

In 1924, the Democrats needed 103 rounds of voting to finally settle on compromise candidate John Davis after the two highest vote-getters withdrew. It didn’t work out well. Incumbent president Calvin Coolidge beat Davis in a landslide.

— Artur Galocha and Dan Balz contributed to this report.

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