Democratic consensus solidifies around Harris, should Biden step aside

By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Lauren Fox, CNN

Washington (CNN) — No one quite knows what the process of picking a new nominee would be if Joe Biden did step aside – but many Democrats say that any process is likelier than ever to quickly end with Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.

The informal conversations about how a fight to replace Biden at the top of the ticket would play out have been raging for weeks behind the scenes. But uncertainty about the process has been so unclear it’s given multiple Democrats – even those with serious concerns about Biden – pause about coming out against the president’s candidacy, given that what comes next could be even messier.

“F**k it, I’m coconut pilled. I just want this to stop,” said one well-known Democratic operative, referring to the online meme that has taken off from an old video of the vice president telling a story of her mother saying, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”

It’s not that everyone has suddenly coalesced – but exhaustion is gelling into consensus.

Internal polls that show Harris would at least be more helpful to boosting Democratic enthusiasm and aiding down ballot races are getting passed around. Arguments that she would be fastest to put together a campaign are landing harder. Daydreams of her making a more active and vigorous case against Donald Trump are taking root.

Many are deliberately holding off talking about hypotheticals as Biden aides say he plans to get back on the campaign trail next week once he recovers from Covid-19. But if that suddenly changes, two dozen leading Democratic politicians and operatives told CNN, they can’t realistically see this ending any other way.

Some are pushing for a fast and closed process, where delegates would bless the swap as part of their planned pre-convention virtual nomination plan.

Some reject the idea of a coronation, either because they prefer others or don’t like the way that would look. But – though there are musings about quickly creating a series of blitz primaries or town halls – no one can agree how that would work with just over 100 days until the election and much less than that before Democrats are scheduled to gather in Chicago. Still, it’s an idea some Harris backers support, doubting that anyone serious would challenge her, as much chest puffing as there is behind the scenes.

Multiple Democratic members of Congress who have called for Biden to go declined on Friday when asked by CNN if they were ready to say they want Harris to be the nominee.

If nothing else, people connected with several of the other possible most serious options and others acknowledge, they would likely feel boxed in by both party loyalty and their own future ambitions. Pressure will be high to unify after the last month of infighting, and anyone who takes her on would be risking torpedoing their reputation with the base in a potential 2028 open primary if she were seen as weakened by that and went on to lose.

Some Democrats believe, even with the threat of early ballot deadlines, it could be settled on the floor of the convention in late August. If this stretches out that long, though, multiple Democrats predicted that the hunger for resolution will only intensify.

That’s become ever more likely, those politicians and operatives say, both by how much closer they are to Election Day and by how impressed they’ve been by how the vice president has handled these weeks of Democratic crisis. They argue the vice president has not been caught scheming, even in private conversations, and instead has showcased being fiery and loyal to Biden at a series of campaign stops, which will continue on Saturday at a fundraiser she’s headlining in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

“I do believe it has to be the vice president. She’s campaigning vigorously under the mantle and she’s the natural successor. It’s going to be important in the scenario that the president isn’t the nominee that we rally around her immediately,” said one Democratic House member who asked not to be named so as not to be seen undercutting the president.

Biden’s hand would matter

Few can conceive of Biden stepping aside and not tapping his running mate to take over. To do otherwise would be a devastating insult to her of the sort that pained Biden himself so much when Barack Obama turned to Hillary Clinton over him ahead of the 2016 election. He’d also be undercutting his own judgment in picking her four years ago as ready for the job, which he reiterated at his news conference last week.

And it would mean passing over a Black vice president after Black voters and Black leaders— including South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, who has said repeatedly he wants Harris if not Biden — not only sustained him to victory in 2020 but are some of the ones standing most strongly with him through this now.

That kind of support would likely only lead to more, which would be convincing to delegates and voters alike — and make taking her on, even with her history of a failed 2020 campaign and rocky start in the vice presidency, harder and harder.

Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California and a Democratic convention delegate who is part of its rules and bylaws committee – as well as an old friend of Harris – said that it’s important to remember, if the president were to step down, that he won Democratic primaries while talking about “Biden-Harris” accomplishments.

“When people voted for him as the nominee they were voting for this ticket, so it just has to be concluded that the best way to validate the vote of the primary voters is to support the vice president as our nominee,” she said. “There’s so much respect for President Biden that if he asked delegates to support her, even with a public chaotic media swirl, I believe most delegates would honor his wishes as the person who was chosen through the primary process and as our president.”

Thinking like that resonates down-ballot as well.

“I think Democratic frontliners know better than anybody else the power of stability. When there is chaos, they’re the ones who suffer the consequences,” an aide to one Democrat in a frontline district told CNN. “Frontliners are like the stock market.”

Democratic politicians and senior aides across national politics fear that unleashing an open process at the convention would be a mess, prolonging the party’s drama and cratering support from the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, a force for mobilizing grassroots support and driving up enthusiasm in November.

Even some Democratic members up for reelection in swing districts also see little upside in the party engaging in a weekslong sojourn to battle test a new face of the party and that assumes that anyone would even want to go up against Harris, risking their own political future if they were to be unsuccessful now.

“The internal fight is killing us. There is no world in which you can push Kamala to the side,” one Democratic member told CNN on the condition of anonymity to discuss the difficult political moment Democrats find themselves in.

Weaknesses haven’t been forgotten

People who have long disliked Harris haven’t suddenly changed their minds. Amnesia hasn’t suddenly set in about her past weaknesses or problems. That’s been part of the calculations Biden is making himself as he deliberates what to do.

Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who is running for reelection in a tough race, told CNN he was surprised by how quickly the conversation had moved from people saying just a few months ago that Harris would be a drag on the ticket and Biden might consider replacing her.

“I just don’t understand how we go from that to the idea that she should be leading the ticket,” Gonzalez said. “I have nothing against her, but the facts are just the facts. Not everything changed, right? How did we go from that to this? I mean, nowhere else in the world but this town, right?”

Republican operatives tell CNN they are salivating – not just at going back through the old attacks and the videos of her word-salad answers but asking her over and over about what she knew and when she knew it about Biden’s health and effects of aging. They’ll push for Biden to resign, to create more chaos and take her off the trail more.

They’ll also question not just the legitimacy of her coming through whatever rushed process is chosen, but of whether she can legally be replaced on the ballot. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comment in an interview this week that “there’s some preliminary research being done” is making the rounds, with real concerns that ballot access that could be affected if Democrats move ahead with a completely new candidate that comes out of a brokered convention.

And already in 2020 when Biden put Harris on the ticket, some went beyond just deliberately mispronouncing her first name, but threatening lawsuits about whether she is constitutionally eligible to serve, hooking the flawed argument on that neither of her parents were born in America.

They’re not the only ones.

“If you think that’s going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class, a huge amount of the elites, a huge amount of these folks in these rooms that I see that are pushing for Joe Biden to not be the nominee also are not interested in seeing the vice president be the nominee,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on an Instagram live chat on Thursday evening.

Some progressives have said behind the scenes, meanwhile, that they trust Biden to be more aligned with their agenda than they do Harris – and that is part of why so many have stuck with him.

‘She’s auditioning for the presidency right now’

To others, the political conversation is lagging behind the way this is landing to many outside Washington and the people who obsess over internal polls and donor data.

“To some degree she’s auditioning for the presidency right now,” said Ashley Etienne, her former communications director and a longtime Hill aide still in touch with many current members. “She’s well positioned to shore up confidence about Joe Biden while assuring people that she’s ready. She needs to do that in more profound ways. The campaign needs to create opportunities for her to do that.”

To Rep. Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat who has said he doesn’t think he could vote for the president, thinking of a move toward Harris is just logical.

“I think that many Americans are thinking that there’s a very high likelihood that if the Biden-Harris ticket wins, that Kamala will finish that second term, Golden said. “So, it might beg the question: Why not just settle that matter in this election?”

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Clarification: This story has been updated to better characterize Rep. Jared Golden’s stance.