Democrats Won't Abandon Nomination Plan

Democrats will not abandon their plan for the presidential nomination at the August convention, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) says.

A DNC spokesperson told Newsweek that it will continue with its plan to hold a virtual roll call to nominate its candidate, despite speculation that the party will jump early to select President Joe Biden in an effort to silence talks of replacing him after his poor debate performance last month.

The committee will push forward with its plans for a virtual nomination before the convention in Chicago. The plans were first drafted in response to the ballot deadline in Ohio, which required candidates to qualify by August 7. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has since signed legislation moving the deadline until after the August 19-22 convention.

But the DNC plans to stick with those plans even after DeWine's move, opting to formally nominate Biden before August 7. The Democrats' credential committee will hold a meeting with its delegates on July 21 to establish the rules of the nominating process. A roll call vote won't take place until after guidelines are set out at this meeting.

The party could nominate its candidate as soon as July 21, according to a Bloomberg report, although the DNC spokesperson told Newsweek the committee doesn't anticipate the vote happening on the same day as the credential committee meeting.

The DNC's communications director, Rosemary Boeglin, also shut down the change rumors on X (formerly Twitter), last week, writing that the July meeting "is not new."

"We've said for weeks that the DNC would hold a virtual roll call in the lead-up to our in-person convention as a result of the OH GOP's bad-faith attempts to keep Joe Biden off of their general election ballot," Boeglin tweeted.

Democratic strategist Christine Pelosi said that the party was sticking with the virtual nomination to "avoid any legal snafus," writing on X that there were rumors that Republicans could try to block the legislation that DeWine approved.

In the aftermath of Biden's shaky debate performance, there have been growing calls from within the Democratic Party for the president to step aside so the nomination goes to another candidate. The past two weeks have caused some panic within the Biden campaign as it tried to calm concerns about whether the 81-year-old president can serve a second term.

Biden has repeatedly insisted he has no plans to withdraw from the race. He sent a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, telling them that "I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024."

He also phoned in to MSNBC's Morning Joe and confronted his critics, telling them to challenge him at the convention if they are serious about not wanting him to run.

"If any of these guys don't think I should run, run against me. Go ahead," Biden said, adding that he doesn't care what prominent Democrats think.

Biden has 3,896 delegates from his state primary victories, according to the Associated Press' presidential delegates tracker. He surpassed the 1,968-delegate threshold for the Democratic nomination with his March win in Georgia on Super Tuesday.