Image source, Getty Images
- author, Madeline Halpert
- role, BBC News
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President Joe Biden has announced that he is withdrawing from the US electoral race and will endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
The decision plunged the party into uncharted territory, but Harris appears to have quickly garnered the support she needs to become the party's official presidential candidate.
But nothing has been decided yet, including who he will choose as his running mate in the election.
Is Biden still the President of the United States?
That's right, he just finished campaigning for reelection to the White House on November 5th.
He has pledged to remain president until his successor is officially sworn in in January.
But Biden is facing calls from Republican leaders for him to step down immediately.
Is Kamala Harris now the Democratic presidential candidate?
Despite Harris's endorsement by Biden, it doesn't mean she could simply replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee.
But she now appears to have unwavering support within the party.
Her supporters include other key potential challengers in the nomination race and, more importantly, the party's delegates.
Delegates are people elected to represent their constituency at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the party's main nominating event, which begins on August 19th.
After Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race, hundreds of his delegate supporters switched to Harris, who the next day surpassed the 1,976 vote threshold needed, according to an Associated Press tally.
Their pledge of support is not binding until the Democratic National Convention, but it will not change the outcome of their vote.
The situation created by Biden's decision is unprecedented in modern times: the last time a sitting US president abandoned a re-election campaign was Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968.
Could other candidates come forward and how will they be approved?
Amid growing calls for Biden to drop out of the race, several potential successors have emerged, but no one has emerged as a strong candidate to challenge Harris.
Strengthening the vice president's position is the fact that several rumored potential replacements for Biden have solidified their support for her, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
It seems increasingly unlikely that Democrats will not unite behind a single candidate, which could lead to the first open convention in decades, with delegates free to choose between multiple candidates for whom to vote.
A candidate's name must receive the signatures of at least 300 delegates (not to exceed 50 from any one state) in order to appear on the ballot.
The first vote will be held among 3,900 pledged delegates, including voters considered loyal to the Democratic Party.
If no candidate receives a majority of the votes in this first round, further rounds of voting will take place. These rounds include superdelegates, party leaders, and elected officials, all of whom vote until a candidate is chosen.
How does the winning candidate choose their running mate?
This tends to be a less formal process than selecting a presidential candidate, with the candidate's choice generally being accepted as his or her running mate.
If Harris were to replace Biden as the top Democratic candidate, people being discussed as her running mate include prominent Democrats who currently support Harris, such as Shapiro, as well as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
If she wins, her running mate will be the future vice president.
What will happen to the funds promised to Biden?
Because Harris was on the same electoral roll as Biden, campaign finance experts have suggested that tens of millions of dollars saved by Biden could flow directly to her if she is confirmed as the Democratic nominee.
Dara Lindenbaum, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, told The New York Times that this is “not an unsettled issue.” “It's very clear,” she added.
But Republicans have indicated they intend to challenge the transfer, pointing out that Biden was not yet officially the party's nominee when he dropped out of the presidential race.
It is unclear what will happen to the funds raised by the Biden-Harris campaign if someone other than Harris becomes the nominee.
