Kamala Harris starts in driver's seat as Biden's 2024 replacement — but it's no guarantee

Now that President Joe Biden has announced he won’t run for re-election, he has endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee.

But it’s not up to him, though Biden’s endorsement is the latest in several very powerful factors leaning Harris’ way.

While Biden won virtually all of the delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and was the party’s presumptive nominee, he relinquished that title by stepping aside and has no direct power over choosing who those delegates will officially nominate.

That’s because the convention delegates, the people who actually pick the Democratic Party’s nominee, are not bound by any law or party rules to back the candidate they’re pledged to support. They only have to “in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

Biden can and likely will still hold enormous sway over the delegates who were preparing to nominate him. But those delegates are free to make up their own minds, both in terms of whether to back Harris and who they want to be the party’s vice presidential nominee, too.

At the moment, it’s even unclear exactly when Democrats will meet to select their nominee.

They had been planning to formally nominate Biden during a virtual roll call vote in the first week of August in order to avoid a potential legal issue around a ballot access deadline in Ohio. But the party may now have to change course if Democratic delegates are not prepared to ratify her nomination so quickly.

That process will be governed by the Democratic National Convention rules committee, which has almost 200 members and is chaired by Leah Daughty, a longtime DNC insider and rules expert, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

In a statement, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison didn’t directly address what happens next, but said an answer would come soon.

“In short order, the American people will hear from the Democratic Party on next steps and the path forward for the nomination process,” he said.

Democrats wanting to replace Biden have been divided for several weeks between one camp favoring an open convention with multiple candidates and others who wanted to see a less disruptive path of a seamless transition to Harris.

Any other candidate would need to act soon. To be in contention to win at the convention, candidates need a petition signed by at least 300 convention delegates and need to sign the document themselves, so a draft effort cannot be run on someone else’s behalf without their explicit approval.

And to make sure one delegation doesn’t try to anoint a favorite, a petition can’t include more than 50 delegates from one state, and delegates can only sign one nominating petition.

Why Harris starts out ahead

Even in an open nominating process, though, Harris has structural advantages that give her a significant leg up over any potential Democratic challengers for the presidential nomination, as she attempts to unify the party behind her and keep quiet calls to open the process to more candidates.

The main ones come directly from her position as vice president: She’s already gone through the major national vetting of someone who has both run for president, been tapped to serve on the ticket, won an election to be Biden’s designated replacement in case something happened to him, has served alongside the president and has been involved in the administration’s handling of major domestic and international issues, and spent four years a target for Republicans and the news media.

That’s four years of experience that no other potential candidate would have. And she would represent the most continuity with the Biden campaign and team, since she was part of that campaign too.

“Because it’s so late in the game … she would be in a very strong position,” Elaine Kamarck told NBC News’ Chuck Todd a recent episode of “The Chuck Toddcast.”

Kamarck, a longtime DNC member who wrote a book on party nominating rules, added, “She’s been there for four years, and there’s no time for anybody else to prepare. She can answer a question about the weapons that we’re sending to Ukraine. I mean, there’s all this stuff that frankly, governors don’t deal with, that presidents do deal with.”

The second advantage is that Harris is the only candidate with a direct line to the Biden campaign’s bank account, which ended June with almost $96 million in the bank. That’s because her name is on all the relevant legal forms alongside Biden’s.

“Biden and Harris share a campaign committee,” said Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Potter noted that this situation has never arisen before and may be tested legally, but he thinks it’s clear. “The vice president and her running mate can continue using the campaign’s existing funds for the general election if she is on the Democratic ticket as either the presidential or vice-presidential nominee,” he said.

The Biden campaign shared a similar message with donors on a telephone call right after the June debate, NBC News previously reported.

Other candidates would likely still be able to access Biden’s money, especially since campaigns can donate as much money to the national or state party organizations as it wants. (That is, the Biden campaign could transfer all of its cash to the DNC.) But no other candidate would likely be able to have direct control over the Biden-Harris war chest has spent years building — at least without a potential legal fight.

A third benefit for Harris is that Democrats say it would be politically dangerous for another candidate — especially if a white man — to be seen as trying to jump the line ahead of the potential first female and first Asian American president in American history.

Democrats of color, like members of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, have already made it clear that they view Harris as the only rightful successor if Biden were to drop out.

“The Congressional Black Caucus PAC joins President Biden in fully supporting Kamala Harris as our party’s nominee,” Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said in a statement. “She will do an excellent job as President of the United States.”

And NBC News reported that South Carolina Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, a CBC veteran, longtime member of House leadership and a key Biden supporter in 2020 and beyond, is set to endorse Harris for president.

Fourth, even before Biden stepped aside, Harris was starting to emerge as the consensus pick between the party’s progressive and more moderate wings.

While Harris was no favorite of the left during the 2020 Democratic primary, progressives have warmed on her — and just as significantly, they do not have a credible alternative candidate waiting in the wings. (Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is even older than Biden.) And progressives would much prefer Harris to more moderate alternative names being talked about before Biden dropped out, such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., even essentially endorsed Harris Saturday on MSNBC, saying she felt comfortable with the idea of Biden stepping aside because Harris is “ready to step up to unite the party.”

And finally, for a party that has made democracy a central pillar of their case, Harris has a stronger claim to democratic legitimacy than any other potential candidate.

After all, a majority of Americans have already voted for her as vice president in 2020, though most were obviously looking at Biden and Trump’s names on the top of the tickets. No other potential candidate could make such a claim.

“Remember, 80 million people voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 knowing that Kamala Harris would be ready to step up if needed,” Warren added.

With just five months to go before the November election, even some Democrats who might prefer an alternative candidate say nominating Harris strikes the right balance between replacing their nominee while not jettisoning Biden’s accomplishments and legacy, which remain popular with Democrats.

And, Biden allies say, passing the torch to a history-making successor he chose would be a powerful final act in public service for him and a common thread for anxious Democratic voters.

With Biden and his campaign actively supporting Harris, it will be hard for potential alternatives to find openings of support.

“We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” Bill and Hillary Clinton said in a statement. “Now is the time to support Kamala Harris and fight with everything we’ve got to elect her. America’s future depends on it.”