Beyond Biden, Democrats are split over who would be next — VP Harris or launch a ‘mini primary’

Officials from the highest ranks, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, prefer an open process, some believing it would strengthen any Democratic nominee.

By LISA MASCARO, DARLENE SUPERVILLE and WILL WEISSERT

WASHINGTON — As Democrats churn over whether President Joe Biden should stay in the 2024 race, the party turmoil is deepening over whether his Vice President Kamala Harris is next in line for the job or if a “mini primary” should be quickly launched to choose a new nominee before the party’s August convention.

Harris hit the campaign fundraising circuit Saturday in breezy Provincetown, Massachusetts, and picked up a nod from the state’s prominent Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who said before the visit that if Biden were to step aside, his vice president is “ready to step up.”

At the event, which organizers said raised $2 million and was attended by 1,000 guests, Harris did not mention the calls for Biden to leave the race or for her to replace him, instead repeating one of her regular campaign lines: “We’re going to win this election,” she said.

“Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in equality? Do we believe in the promise of America? Then are we ready to fight for it?” she called to a cheering crowd. “When we fight, we win.”

But installing Harris to the top of the ticket, which would be a history-making moment for the party elevating the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent as its presidential nominee, is not at all certain. Officials from the highest ranks, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, prefer an open process, some believing it would strengthen any Democratic nominee to confront Republican Donald Trump.

“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave…. that they will support Kamala, Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this week on a widely discussed social media post.

With the publicly aired deliberations, Democrats are prolonging an extraordinary moment of uncertainty and upheaval. Biden has weighty options before him this weekend that could set the direction of the country and his party as the nation heads toward the November election.

It’s creating a stark juxtaposition with Republicans, who, after years of bitter and chaotic infighting over Trump, are energized and embracing the former president’s far-right takeover of the GOP, despite his criminal conviction in a hush money case and pending federal criminal indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Biden, despite a week of campaign stops, interviews and insistence that he is the best candidate to take on Trump in a rematch, hasn’t been able to quell the uproar. Skeptical Democrats doubt he can keep the White House after his stumbled debate performance last month, and worry he will take hopes for party control of Congress down with him.

On Saturday, Rep. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who say it’s time for Biden to leave the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch,” to Harris.

More lawmakers are expected to speak out in the days ahead. Donors have raised concerns.

“There is no joy in the recognition he should not be our nominee in November,” said Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats urging Biden’s exit from the race.

From his beach home in Delaware, Biden, 81, is isolating after announcing a COVID infection, but also politically with a small circle of family and close advisers. White House doctor Kevin O’Connor said Saturday that Biden’s symptoms were improving, but that he remained plagued by a dry cough and hoarseness. He received separate briefings Saturday on domestic and national security issues, the White House said.

The president’s team insisted he’s ready to return to the campaign this coming week to counter what he called a “dark vision” laid out by Trump.

“Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box,” Biden said in a statement Friday.

But outside the Rehoboth enclave, the debate and passions are intensifying.

Very few of the Democratic lawmakers who are agitating for Biden to leave have mentioned Harris in their statements, and some have said they favor an open nominating process that would throw the party’s endorsement behind a new candidate.

A person familiar with Pelosi’s thinking said that while she is a friend and admirer of the vice president, she believes that anybody who wants to be president is better served by such a process, believing that whoever emerges as the candidate would be strengthened to win the election. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to characterize Pelosi’s thought process.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a Pelosi ally who has called on Biden to step aside, said Friday on MSNBC that some kind of “mini-primary” that would include Harris makes sense.

Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Peter Welch of Vermont have both called for Biden to exit the race and said they would favor an open nominating process at the convention.

“Having it be open would strengthen whoever is the ultimate nominee,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Other Democrats say it would be politically unthinkable to move to someone other than Harris, and logistically unworkable with a virtual nominating vote being planned for early next month, before the Democratic convention opens in Chicago on Aug. 19.

Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, who has called on Biden to step aside, explicitly endorsed Harris as a replacement.

“To give Democrats a strong, viable path to winning the White House, I am calling upon President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice-President Harris to step forward to become the Democratic nominee for President,” McCollum said in her statement.

The standoff over Biden’s political future has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month from the Democratic National Convention that should be a unifying moment to nominate their incumbent president to confront Trump. Instead, the party is at a crossroads unseen in generations.

It’s unclear what else, if anything, the president could do to reverse course and win back lawmakers and Democratic voters, who are wary of his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term,

Biden, who sent a defiant letter to Democrats in Congress vowing to stay in the race, has yet to visit Capitol Hill to shore up support, an absence noticed by senators and representatives.

The president did conduct a round of virtual conversations with various caucuses in the past week — some of which ended poorly.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Seung Min Kim, Farnoush Amiri and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.