Biden endorses Kamala Harris as US presidential nominee

United States President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race has left Democrats grappling with unanswered questions about the way forward, with less than four months before election day.

Biden stepped aside on Sunday after weeks of pressure from fellow Democrats following a disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump in June.

Now, Democrats need to coalesce around a new nominee and re-energise their base if they want to defeat Trump, analysts say. Vice President Kamala Harris is an early favourite to replace Biden, especially after she received the president’s endorsement. Biden also encouraged donors to contribute to Harris for her campaign.

Still, Biden’s decision to withdraw is not merely unusual — it is unprecedented in modern US politics. “We’re in uncharted territory here,” said Kyle Kondik, the managing editor for the Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a newsletter about elections published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

And Harris could face challengers seeking the Democratic nomination in the coming days.

The new nominee will be chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, when more than 4,000 party officials and activists, known as delegates, gather to vote.

There have been instances where parties have chosen their candidates in competitive conventions after the primaries. In fact, that happened frequently before the modern primary system was put in place in 1972, granting voters a greater say in the process.

But the Democrats’ current situation is different.

Having won nearly all pledged delegates, Biden is now the first presumptive nominee of a major party to quit the race after the primaries have concluded.

The president ran in the primaries without any serious challengers and Democratic officials stressed early on that Biden – as the incumbent – will be the likely nominee.

“I don’t really think there’s any good recent precedent for it. Half a century or more ago, it wasn’t uncommon to go into the convention not necessarily knowing for sure who the nominee was going to be,” Kondik, who spoke to Al Jazeera earlier this week, said.

“But since then, we haven’t had this sort of situation where somebody dominates the primary season – but then steps aside later, in advance of the convention.”

With no historical precedent to follow, Democrats will have to improvise within their guidelines on how to choose their new nominee, analysts say.