DNC member lays out process to replace Biden as nominee in memo to party chair
A former member of the Democratic National Committee is urging the party to set up a process to replace President Biden this summer.
The member, James Zogby, a former member of the party’s executive committee, made the suggestion in a memo to DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison.
Mr. Zogby, who shared the memo with The New York Times, said in it that many Democrats “fear the uncertainties or even chaos” that could result if Mr. Biden were to leave office. But he wrote that the “question of finding a replacement is no longer speculative,” adding: “It is urgent, and it will not go away.”
As a DNC member who has served for more than 30 years and has also advised several presidential campaigns, Mr. Zogby has limited influence over the party’s current leadership. However, he could exert influence on other party stalwarts looking for alternatives.
The process that Mr. Zogby outlines in the memo, however, begins with an unlikely prospect: Mr. Biden announcing that he is withdrawing from the race. He also suggests that Mr. Biden instruct the party not to simply select Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee, but instead to meet after July 4 to “develop a month-long campaign schedule to select the party’s nominee.”
Potential candidates must then secure the support of 40 current DNC members, including four from each of the party’s four regions, from the list of about 400 members.
“Given the relatively small number of DNC members,” he wrote, “such a process would most likely produce no more than five potential nominees.”
The party would then host two televised events where the candidates could “defend their positions to Democratic voters across the country.”
Mr. Zogby proposed that the process be completed at the party convention in Chicago in August, where candidates would be formally nominated and a vote taken among delegates.
“The excitement this process generates and the attention it will receive will be an asset to our eventual nominee,” he wrote.
