She was incredulous. Baffled. Disappointed. Full of regret. “Totally caught off guard.” Angry at fellow Democrats who she said were bullying Biden out of the race. And already feeling enormous pressure about her future role.
Dawkins-Haigler is one of nearly 4,000 DNC delegates who have been selected to represent the more … than 14 million Democratic primary voters cast their ballots for Biden as their nominee. But with his withdrawal, those delegates are now free to vote for whoever they want, which Dawkins-Haigler said puts them in “a terrible position.” She plans to follow Biden’s wishes and has signed a petition supporting Harris’ candidacy. But she worries that a black female presidential candidate will face insurmountable racism and sexism and then be blamed by the same party leaders who pushed Biden out of the race.
And in a year when Democrats have made protecting democracy the cornerstone of their attack on former President Donald Trump, Dawkins-Haigler fears Biden’s replacement process After voters choose him, it would not only divide Democrats but also raise legal and ethical questions that could cause chaos in the final months of the presidential campaign.
“I’ve never seen this kind of confusion in the ninth inning, because that’s where we are. We’re in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the fact that we have to switch sides … it scares me,” said Dawkins-Haigler, 54, a former Georgia state representative and ordained minister who lives in Stonecrest, Ga. “Biden was duly elected by the American people to be the Democratic nominee. Now we’re going to go out there now and mess it up and try to rally around one person … We just don’t have time for that.”
Delegates to party congresses have long since Harris’ role has been largely ceremonial in the presidential nomination process, but Democrats are now embarking on something historic and unprecedented: replacing the top candidate with just over 100 days to go before the election. Party leaders have made clear that they want to avoid the chaos that the multiple candidates vying for the nomination have caused at the convention. As of Monday night, a majority of delegates had pledged to vote for Harris, indicating that she has the support to become the party’s next nominee.
With Harris not being chosen by voters in this year’s primaries and caucuses, her assumption of the presidency could expose her to accusations that she did not secure the nomination through a democratic process. While the process of replacing a candidate is permitted under party rules, some Democrats worry that the appearance of undemocratic behavior threatens the party’s principles.
“There’s really no historical precedent for this, and I think a fair and open process is critical both for the tens of millions of Democratic voters who went to the polls, but also for the perception of voters everywhere,” said Ryan Morgan, a Virginia delegate who doesn’t want to immediately anoint Harris. “We have a primary process, we have a democratic process, and to have (delegates) choose someone based on the opinion of the incumbent president is not what people are used to.”
Already, Trump and other Republicans have called the effort to replace Biden undemocratic, and a conservative think tank has threatened to challenge the new nominee in court — an effort that election lawyers say will undoubtedly fail but could help cement in voters’ minds that the new candidate was not directly chosen by voters.
Throughout the campaign, Democrats have accused Trump of threatening democracy because he denied the results of the 2020 election and refused to concede defeat. But now Trump is trying to use Harris’s likely ascension to the presidency to turn the tables.
“Democrats pick a candidate, dishonest Joe Biden, he loses the debate, then panics, makes mistake after mistake, is told he can’t win and decides to pick another candidate, probably Harris. They stole the race from Biden after he won the primary – A first! These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” Trump posted on his social media platform on Monday. Social truth.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), told supporters at a rally that Democratic elites “got into a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard.”
“That’s not how it works. It’s a threat to democracy, not to the Republican Party, which fights for democracy every day,” Vance said.
Before stepping down, Biden repeatedly stressed that voters had chosen him, and no one else, as their candidate.
“I am the nominee of this party because 14 million Democrats like you voted for me in the primaries,” Biden said at a campaign event in Detroit on July 12. “You made me the nominee, no one else. Not the press, not the pundits, not the insiders, not the donors, but you, the voters. You made the decision, no one else, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Democratic leaders decided Monday to move forward with their plan to select the nominee through a virtual process that will end Aug. 7, well before the party’s nominating convention in Chicago, which begins Aug. 19. Before Biden dropped out of the race, Democrats had planned to certify his nomination before the convention, citing concerns about ballot access delays. As support for Harris solidified Monday, DNC leaders decided to stick with that approach.
Harris spent more than 10 hours calling more than 100 party leaders Sunday, telling them she planned to win the nomination on her own, according to a person familiar with the vice president’s actions who spoke on condition of anonymity about the private calls. That night, all 50 state Democratic Party chairs pledged their support for Harris.
Harris needs the support of at least 1,976 delegates, and more than 2,200 of them have pledged to support her, according to an Associated Press poll. Several state political parties, including those in Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, have announced that all or nearly all of their delegates support Harris.
Many delegates argued that Harris’s choice was the more Democratic option because she was on the 2024 ticket chosen by primary voters, meaning they already supported her as the next presidential candidate.
Roberto Reveles, 91, a delegate from Arizona, said it was “absolutely fair” to swap Harris for Biden.
“I will be able, in good conscience, to vote for the person that the president himself has delegated as his successor, in case of emergency,” Reveles said.
Tennessee delegate Megan Lange, 33, added: “It makes sense that our vote for Harris for vice president turns into a vote for Kamala Harris for president.”
Regardless of who Democrats choose as their nominee, there is nothing undemocratic about the process of replacing Biden on the ticket, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The situation we’re in is this: the winner of the primary has decided he can’t run. That’s the party’s democratic process for dealing with that,” he said. “It would be like a candidate dying… there’s nothing undemocratic about that.”
But Republicans are keen to sow doubt about that.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Foundation The Oversight Project wrote in a brief published in early April that if Democrats tried to replace Biden, “there is a risk of pre-election litigation in some states that would make the process difficult and possibly unsuccessful.”
After Biden’s announcement, Howell said the conservative think tank was “deep in the planning stages of litigation” and referenced an Oversight Project article on X: “We’ve been preparing for this moment for months. Many media outlets have tried to discredit us. Who’s laughing now? No more ‘make-as-you-go’ elections. Stay tuned…”
Election law experts say conservatives have no recourse because Biden was not yet the official nominee when he withdrew and the process allows delegates to select a candidate.
“We have a representative democracy,” said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center and a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “These delegates were elected by 14 million voters … These delegates are still there, they still have the right to choose a candidate, and now it’s going to be someone else.”
That candidate, Potter added, would have the same right to appear on ballots across the country that Biden would have had.
“I think it’s ridiculous for them to say the election is stolen, since the candidates are able to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to stay on the ballot,” said Karthik Soora, a delegate from Texas.
While Dawkins-Haigler is nervous about the path forward, she said she also hopes the party will now unite to take on Trump — and soon.
“One thing is for sure: we are determined. We are a strong party. We can bounce back from many challenges,” she said. “We are always in the position of having to save democracy. And we will do it again.”
Bailey reported from Atlanta and Wingett Sanchez from Phoenix. Erin Cox, Alice Crites, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Meryl Kornfield, Patrick Marley, Nicole Markus, Ence Morse, Tyler Pager, Sabrina Rodriguez, Aaron Schaffer, Michael Scherer, Gregory S. Schneider, and Laura Vozzella contributed to this report.
