- President Joe Biden vowed again Wednesday that he would not drop out of the race.
- If so, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the best candidate to replace her.
- Harris has both practical and political advantages in his favor.
Democrats would face a practical and political nightmare if President Joe Biden stepped aside and decided to sideline Vice President Kamala Harris rather than put her at the top of the ticket.
On Wednesday, Biden and Harris jointly told campaign aides that they would continue to face growing criticism following Biden’s disastrous debate performance, according to The Associated Press.
“I’m running. I’m the leader of the Democratic Party. Nobody is pushing me to resign,” he said, according to the AP.
No one, least of all Biden’s running mate, appears to be publicly pressuring Biden to drop out now.
Harris gets the money — probably.
If Biden decides to step down, attention will quickly turn to Harris. She is by far the most likely candidate to succeed Biden. And, more importantly, campaign finance experts say, she would have the easiest access to the Biden campaign’s $240 million war chest.
While no one really knows what would happen to those millions if Biden were to step down, Harris would likely control the money — but only if she became the nominee.
“If Harris succeeds Biden as the presidential candidate, she would retain access to all campaign committee funds and could use them to advance her presidential bid,” Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider in an email.
That’s because she shares a campaign committee with Biden, Ghosh said. Given her initial involvement with Biden’s money — and the presence of her name on FEC filings related to his candidacy — she’s likely the only one who could use that money without too much trouble.
Yet the same rules would not apply if Harris remained a vice presidential candidate or dropped out of the race altogether.
According to Ghosh, federal contribution limits stipulate that transfers between candidates cannot exceed $2,000 per election. While the Biden camp could convert the money into a political action committee if someone else were the candidate, there’s a catch: PACs can only give a maximum of $3,300 per election to another candidate.
“In either case, there is no legal way for Biden to transfer the $90 million his campaign currently has to a new candidate,” Ghosh told Business Insider.
In a massive return-to-sender effort, the Biden campaign could also refund the donations and donors could redirect their money to the new candidate, campaign finance experts told NBC. Or, in another version of the future, the Biden campaign could transfer the funds to the national party.
All things considered, Harris’ arrival at the top of the ticket if Biden steps down seems like the easiest solution in terms of hard cash.
But money, of course, isn’t the only issue: Even as many heads turn toward Harris, long-standing questions about her viability as a candidate remain.
Harris enjoys significant support within the Democratic Party’s hard core.
Pushing Harris aside could set off a firestorm of anger. The vice president has repeatedly said she supports Biden, but already influential voices within the party are lining up behind her. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose support helped Biden win the state’s 2020 primary, has said he would want Harris if Biden steps down.
“We have to do everything we can to support her, whether she’s second or first,” Clyburn said on MSNBC Tuesday.
In Washington, where eyes are never far away, it would be impossible to ignore the first female vice president replaced by a man, or the first black vice president replaced by a white candidate.
Black voters remain the heart of the modern Democratic Party. No group is monolithic, but none of Biden’s primary opponents come close to Harris’s black community. According to a recent Economist-YouGov poll, 66% of black voters have a favorable view of Harris. By comparison, only 47% of black voters have a favorable view of California Gov. Gavin Newsom; slightly fewer have the same view of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The same poll found that voters don’t yet know Whitmer well enough to form an opinion about her, underscoring another potential problem. Harris is one of the best-known political figures in the country. Any potential replacement will likely have to make himself known to the American people and on the national stage.
That doesn’t mean Harris has it all. Her fame comes with White House baggage. Republicans would likely level the same attacks on the economy and immigration they’ve used against Biden. Unlike a potential replacement outside the Washington Post, Harris would have a hard time being very close to the president.
Republicans are already preparing for a possible Kamala Harris run if she wins the nomination and, with it, campaign money. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee released a digital ad calling her the “enabler in chief” and blaming her for the chaos at the border.
Set to ominous music, the ad asks, “Is this the man we want to see as president?” It seems the Democratic Party and its donors need to answer that question, too.
