Biden delegates reveal convention plans amid push to replace president on ticket
Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: President Biden continues to have support from Democratic delegates, despite a growing number of elected Democrats calling on him to step aside ahead of the 2024 election amid concern over his age and mental acuity.
Two weeks after the president’s disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump, as well as his Thursday press conference at NATO, Fox News Digital spoke to a handful of Democratic delegates who remain largely supportive of Biden and intend to cast their votes in support of him at the party’s convention next month.
Some delegates also dismissed talk of Vice President Kamala Harris as a replacement in the upcoming election, insisting that she and the president are an unbreakable team.
“I think he did an awesome job last night. I really do,” said Joanne Chesley, a pledged Biden delegate from North Carolina. “His clarity and his spontaneity … just well-informed responses. I was super impressed.”
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On a larger scale, Chesley said the situation surrounding Biden and the ongoing questions of whether he is fit to serve has had her feeling “concerned” and “emotional.”
“This thing has had me really, really, concerned and emotional, actually, over the whole time that it’s been going on,” she said. “It’s a bit of a somersault and I think a lot of us have been there. I think that’s the beauty of being in this country and being a Democrat, where we encourage people to think and rethink and share perspectives and ask questions and get mad at each other and do just like families and organizations until you get to something that is the workable solution.”
Pointing to his “track record,” Chesley, who will support Biden at the Democratic National Convention in August and previously said she wished that Biden had realized that his age was going to be a potential issue in this election much earlier, said she “always come[s] back to my senses.”
“I have gone from that kind of feeling, wishing that he had, you know, made that decision to say ‘no’ [to] we’ve got a person who really, really cares about this country,” she said. “Despite those occasional flirtations with him stepping aside, I, like I said, come back to looking at what’s best for our country right now. We’re in a very difficult time in our history.”
As for talk about Harris replacing Biden as the party’s nominee, Chesley said she believes “they are a team.”
“We get the best of both of them,” she said. “We get that warm, fuzzy grandpa who tells the stories over and over about his dad, and we get this brilliant person who has served as attorney general for the largest state in this country, who’s done four years in the Senate and four years’ experience in the White House. We want vibrancy and younger, so we get that in our vice president.”
Maribel Balbin, a pledged Biden delegate from Miami, Florida, said she understands “the concern that has been expressed” and insisted that it’s “nothing new.”
“Normally he makes mistakes about people and places, just the same as we have seen the former president do in his rallies,” she said. “On a personal level, I am not concerned, and I have not changed my views of the president or what the president stands for.”
The upcoming election, Balbin said, is “a binary choice, and it’s certainly between democracy or dictatorship.”
“As someone that grew up in a dictatorship, I am certainly not willing to support something that looks to me like the place that I left,” she said. “So as a woman, as a Hispanic, and now a Democrat, a former Republican, I support the Democratic Party. I understand that the choice for this election is up to the president. If the president decides that he is not the candidate, that he steps out, then we will support that position. Until that happens. I am a pledged delegate to Joe Biden.”
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Echoing Balbin, Karl Gentles, a pledged Biden delegate from Arizona, said his “position hasn’t changed” about Biden and that it would be a “disaster” for Democrats to replace him at this point.
“I believe that you’ve got a candidate that’s been fully vetted,” he said. “He’s brought you all this way, three and a half years of significant success in the administration. I think it would be, in all honesty, disastrous to change out your candidate in this late date.”
Gentles said he supports “the Biden-Harris ticket,” insisting that talk of a Biden replacement and the “hypothetical game” isn’t doing Democrats any good.
“It’s my opinion that, you know, Democrats should really focus on how they’re going to win in these next four months [instead of] trying to figure out multiple scenarios. The scenario that I believe is the best for the Democrats is the Biden-Harris ticket.”
Like many of her other fellow delegates, Samantha Hope Herring, a pledged Biden delegate and elected member of the DNC from Florida, said she is “Ridin’ with Biden.”
“I mean, we are all-in with the president until he indicates, or if he indicates, that he makes a different decision,” Herring said. “I have to be honest, I think a lot of us have always known that when you have anybody over the age of 50, I mean, you’ve got have a good backup plan for whatever you’re doing. That’s a fair statement on both sides of the aisle.”
“One of the great things about having somebody with wisdom and having experience, especially if they’re an older candidate, is having somebody who’s prepared in the event and ready to walk on the job [on] day one. So we definitely have that,” she added.
Herring, who insisted there’s currently a strong “voice of support for President Biden,” said Harris would be a “natural” fit should Biden not be able to fulfill his duties as president in office.
Like Chesley, Herring said she believes that many Democrats see Biden and Harris “as a team.”
“We really feel strongly about the record that they’ve got and stand on that together,” she said.
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Another Democratic delegate from Colorado, Irene Bonham, said she is “still listening” and is “interested in what [Biden] would be able to do to help change the narrative in terms of the concerns around his ability.”
“I think Biden is a good president,” she said. “My concerns are really more around whether or not he is up to the task as a candidate. I think that’s a fair question and one that, you know, morally, as Democrats, we have to be asking right now.”
Bonham said she believes that Biden’s press conference last night “was a good step forward.”
“What I saw was a president with deep knowledge of foreign policy and affairs. When I contrast that with Trump – a convicted felon who seems to have an affection for autocrats – the choice is pretty clear,” she said.
Asked prior to the press conference whether she would be open to supporting another candidate, Bonham said “there are definitely names that have been put forward out into the media that I would be interested in learning more about.”
“I think that we also have to remember that it’s not just the Biden ticket, it is the Biden-Harris ticket. And so, should Biden step aside, my assumption would be that Kamala Harris would have a stake in this race,” she added.
Biden has stated several times since his damaging debate performance last month that he will not drop out of the race. But matters would be less complicated for Democrats if the president willfully chose to step aside before the party’s convention in Chicago from August 19 through 22.
Democrats will officially choose their nominee at the convention, though they reportedly plan to nominate Biden and Harris ahead of the convention next month.
At the convention, a candidate must win support from the majority of the party’s nearly 4,000 delegates, the party officials who formally select the nominee. Delegates are distributed to candidates based on the results of primary elections in each state.
For the Democratic Party, there are “pledged” and “unpledged” delegates. Pledged delegates have to vote for whichever candidate in their party wins the primary or caucus in their respective state, while unpledged delegates may choose to vote for any candidate. In the Democratic Party, unpledged delegates are known as “superdelegates,” current elected officials and party leaders who can support any candidate.
A total of 1,976 delegates are needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president. Biden has won roughly 3,900 this year. Those delegates have “pledged” to support Biden’s candidacy, according to DNC rules.
Although Biden has not indicated that he plans to withdraw from the race, if he were to do so, his delegates would no longer be pledged to him. His withdrawal would lead to an open convention, resulting in Democrats being able to make suggestions for potential nominees and cast votes until one candidate receives a majority of delegate votes.