It is no longer a given that Joe Biden will run for a second term

In normal times, the national conventions of political parties in the United States are a routine enough business. The party – be that Republican or Democrat – meets up in some big city for a hullabaloo just before the presidential election. There are days of speeches by party worthies. These speeches outline in the vaguest terms what their party stands for while denouncing the other side in the greatest of detail. Normally, nobody outside the Convention – and few within – pays much heed to any of that. The party who are in office usually chant ‘four more years’. There are lots of balloons.

The only serious business the conventions do is formally nominate the party’s candidate for president. That’s usually a straightforward matter as the parties have chosen their candidate out in the primaries, where party supporters vote to decide who their state should support at the convention. So, if a candidate wins a primary in New Hampshire, all the delegates from New Hampshire vote for that person at the convention.

It’s a little more complicated than that sometimes truth be told, but it’s easy when the result from the primaries across all the states are clear. Generally speaking, the person who got most votes and won most states in the primaries gets the nod. When you have a sitting president, it’s usually very straightforward indeed.

On the last night of the convention, the nominated candidate makes a speech of acceptance. A fair few people pay attention to that, and then everyone goes home, ready for the main election in November. That is what happens in normal times. But as we all know, the US presidential election of 2024 is a long way from normal.

Leaving aside for today the question as to whether the Republican candidate will be a convicted felon by the time he runs for election again, there is a recurring question about the Democrats, and most especially about their candidate. However much Democrats want this question to go away, it is not likely to do so.

Is Joe Biden too old to run again for US President? Will he be able to govern for four more years? Will he – and this is the big question for Democrats – lose if he does run? If there was some moderate Republican running against him, people might be a bit relaxed about that. But that is certainly not what is coming if Biden loses. That last consideration is what is driving the big question: will the President have to step aside before the election in November?

The question of Joe Biden’s age and capacity for a second term has been swirling around since he was first elected, even before it. But it went into overdrive lately. The context was that President Biden was being investigated in respect of some documents he took with him while leaving office as Vice President back in 2017. An independent special prosecutor, Robert Hur, was appointed to look into it and make a decision as to whether the President should be prosecuted or not.

He concluded that he could not recommend prosecuting the President – good news for Biden. But, in the report submitted to explain his decision, Hur argued that Biden would be impossible to prosecute because a jury would find him a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”.  That would be a bad report for a man in his early eighties who was trying to renew his driving licence, but it is devastating for a man who is currently President of the United States, and most especially for one who wants to keep doing it for another four years. Many on Biden’s side were quick to point out that the form of words chosen by Mr Hur was designed to be devastating. In effect, they argue that this was a judicial officer doing overtly political work to damage a sitting president.

But, once said, the words have done damage. And this is why so many are now wondering whether it will prove possible for President Biden to run again.

Many point out that Biden and Trump are in and around the same age. Many point out that Trump can forget things too. But those saying those things miss the obvious point. One man looks and acts and talks a lot older than the other. Painful and all as that is for those who support and even love him, that is what is counting.

If the President cannot move the dial on this in the coming months, the pressure on him to step aside will grow even louder. If Trump keeps leading in the polls, then the Democrats will start to panic. That panic will spread and eventually someone who really matters in the party will say it openly – that in the interests of the country, the President should not run. If the pressure mounts so much that the President does that (and it is a big if), what on earth would happen?

The problem would be that the primaries are how the parties pick their candidate. But the primaries are on right now. Trump has already essentially won his one. The Democrats are going through the motions, holding primaries in different states – a process that will continue until about May. No one pays much heed to them right now because the President is easily winning all of them.

But what happens if President Biden decides – or is forced – to withdraw sometime between May and the convention, which takes place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago?

If that happens, there would be no primary elections to decide who should be the candidate and so the Democratic National Convention would decide it. What on earth even is it? The easiest way to describe it is as the Ard Fheis. The Democratic National Convention is made up of delegates from the Democratic Party all across the country. Each state in the Union sends delegates to it. The number of delegates from each state is decided by the size of the state and – this is quite the rule! – how many times that state has voted Democrat in recent presidential elections. On top of that, there is a whole set of people – party officials and elected representatives – who get to be a delegate and vote.

With nothing to guide them outside the convention centre, these delegates would decide who should face Donald Trump for the US Presidency. Candidates will be nominated, they will make speeches, and deals will be done. The Democrats are too politically correct these days to have actual smoke-filled rooms, but that is what they will be – smoke or not! The convention will keep voting until the party has a nominee. 

The current Vice President, Kamala Harris, will surely run. Others will appear – the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, among them. If it is an entirely new candidate, that person will run in the presidential election on the slogan ‘time to turn the page’, arguing that it is time to leave the era of divisiveness behind. That may prove a compelling argument. If it comes about, it may be Donald Trump who comes to regret those words of Robert Hur’s.

But maybe none of this will happen, and President Biden will run. But just in case he doesn’t, put August 19-22 into your diary. The Democratic National Convention might be the most watched event in television history – and if so, you and I will be in the audience.