U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House on July 3, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/TNS)
LAS VEGAS (Tribune News Service) — Henderson resident Tom Kohnman was a registered Democrat up until a few days ago. After President Joe Biden’s “terrible” debate performance, Kohnman says he switched to nonpartisan.
He hopes other Nevada Democrats will follow suit and signal to the party that it needs to find a new candidate.
“I thought by switching over, they’d see that he’s in serious trouble,” the 62-year-old said. “It’s definitely time for a generational change. They have to give up the power on both sides.”
Post-debate polls show Biden even farther behind than he was before June 27. One New York Times/Siena poll shows former President Donald Trump with a six-point lead. A CNN poll says most voters think Democrats would have a better shot of winning the presidency if someone other than Biden was running, with Vice President Kamala Harris performing better in a hypothetical match-up against Trump than Biden.
While both Biden and the national party have committed to staying the course, the fallout that followed his politically disastrous debate performance begs some questions: Could Biden be replaced from Nevada’s ballot in November? Is that a complicated process?
The answers: Yes. And, it depends.
A simple process, but with a cost
Efforts to remove Biden would have to come from the national Democratic Party itself, according to Nicole Kelly, a political and election law attorney who practices in Nevada and Washington D.C.
In Nevada, the legal process to remove Biden would be simple within a certain time period, Kelly said.
The major parties have until Sept. 3 to tell the Nevada Secretary of State’s office the name of their candidates, according to a regulation added to the Nevada Administrative Code in 2023.
If the national party were to choose a new candidate, all it would have to do is give that name to the secretary of state’s office, said Kelly, who served as the political director in Nevada for the Republican National Lawyer Association during the 2022 election cycle.
Biden, however, was elected by Democratic voters as their presidential nominee for 2024. Replacing him would be done without input from voters.
Jaime Harrison, chair of the DNC, said in a statement the presidential primary is over, and the will of Democratic voters in every state clearly chose Biden to be the party’s presidential nominee.
“Delegates are pledged to reflect voters’ sentiment, and over 99 percent of delegates are already pledged to Joe Biden headed into our convention,” he said in a statement.
Before the convention
Nevada Democrats elected Biden as their presidential nominee through the presidential preference primary in February. Following that, the state party picked delegates they will send to the convention in Chicago.
The delegates are expected to cast Nevada’s votes for Biden, reflecting the will of the voters, but Kelly said Democratic delegates are not bound to the presidential nominee. Under DNC rules, delegates are allowed to vote “within their good conscience” and vote for a different candidate.
Nevada’s Democratic delegates are in lockstep with Biden, according to the Nevada State Democratic Party.
“Nevada voters broke turnout records when they elected President Biden in the First in the West presidential preference primary and will elect him again in November,” Chairwoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno said in a statement. “He has the unwavering support of Nevada Democrats.”
If Biden decides to step aside or is somehow ousted by the party before the Democratic National Convention in August, the party would have to determine his replacement, and that individual would have to go through the same convention process, Kelly said. Biden could step aside, suggest Harris as the nominee and direct his pledged delegates to vote for her, she said.
After the convention
The Democratic Party even has some leeway after the convention to replace Biden. If he is nominated in August but then drops out, DNC rules allow for a nominee other than him to be named, Kelly said.
That is when back-room discussions would be held to select a new candidate. That person would have to be an individual who meets the constitutional requirements of being president, Kelly said. Additionally, the presidential nominee and the vice presidential nominee cannot be from the same state. A Harris-Gavin Newsom ticket, for instance, would not be possible, she said.
If both Biden and Harris are nominated as president and vice president at the convention and he steps aside after, but before Nevada’s Sept. 3 deadline, there is no requirement that Harris would then become the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kelly said.
When the second presidential debate is held in September after the deadline — and if there are renewed calls to replace Biden as a candidate — significant ballot access issues could come into play, both due to the state’s deadline as well as when ballots begin to be printed and mailed out, Kelly said.
What if he drops out after the ballots are printed?
There is a provision within Nevada law that says if Biden isn’t removed by the Sept. 3 deadline — and appears on the ballot despite no longer running — it would create a vacancy in that position, Kelly said.
Under Nevada law, there is some indication as to where those votes would go. The votes he would receive would likely go to whomever that vacant position is filled by, but it would likely be sent through litigation, Kelly said.
“It becomes messier when you don’t put the real nominee on the ballot,” she said.
If Biden drops out too late and Harris becomes the nominee, but voters’ ballots still say Joe Biden, “they could be confused,” Kelly said. The process could create voter confusion and disinformation could spread, she said.
One of the easiest ways to replace Biden would be to have him nominated at the convention, then almost immediately afterward — but before Nevada’s Sept. 3 deadline — have him step aside and replace with him another individual in order to not go through that delegate process at all, but “this would be someone that the American people never even got to have a say in,” Kelly said.
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