If President Joe Biden succumbs to growing pressure to drop out of the 2024 race, vice president Kamala Harris may not be a shoe-in to take over.
A group of Democratic donors has pledged $2 million for a “mini primary” to ensure an open competition for the nomination, according to the Washington Post. The group led by former Paypal and Intuit CEO Bill Harris would help fund presidential debates for the leading Democratic candidates to participate in, with the hopes of drawing public attention to Biden’s replacement. Other Democrats have already started preparing for Harris to take over.
“Televised debates with such a powerful cast will grip the country and instantly catapult at least some of them into the public imagination,” Harris told the Washington Post.
While he characterized the vice president as “a very strong candidate,” the business mogul stressed the importance of a “mini primary” that would allow other candidates to get exposure.
One roadblock to replacing Biden is that the money donated to the Biden-Harris campaign cannot be directly transferred to a new campaign, so the easiest way to keep the money raised if the president dropped out of the race would be for Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket.
Harris, the Democratic donor, said he did not donate to the Biden-Harris campaign in 2024 despite doing so in 2020 due to concerns about the president’s age. It was Biden’s performance at the first presidential debate that catalyzed the effort, according to Harris.