Democrats are moving forward with plans to nominate President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for a second term through a virtual roll call next month before the party convenes Aug. 19 in Chicago for its four-day national convention.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s rules committee, confirmed Wednesday during a Biden campaign news conference near the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that party officials are proceeding with the plans despite Ohio pushing back its ballot access deadline.
The move comes as Democrats, including some from Illinois, continue to question whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee after last month’s disastrous debate performance against former Republican president Donald Trump, who is expected to accept his party’s nomination Thursday in Milwaukee.
Democrats originally said they would nominate Biden and Harris virtually to comply with a previous Aug. 7 deadline, 12 days before the state of the DNC. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed a measure moving the deadline to Sept. 1.
Still, Democrats will move forward with the virtual vote, Walz said, also pointing to an Aug. 20 deadline in Washington state.
“I think if we were in a simpler time, we’ve always done this,” Walz said of states adjusting the deadlines to accommodate both party’s convention schedules. “We’ve just trusted each other and we got it done.”
That is no longer the case, the governor said, pointing to comments from Ohio’s GOP secretary of state, Frank LaRose, before the deadline change.
“Look, we’re in a time where voter restriction is … not a bug, it’s a feature of the Republican Party,” Walz said. “I don’t trust them in Ohio to do this. But that’s not the only reason for it.”
Walz and rules committee co-chair Bishop Leah D. Daughtry reportedly sent a letter to committee members ahead of a Friday meeting.
“We will not be implementing a rushed virtual voting process,” Daughtry and Walz wrote in the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, “though we will begin our important consideration of how a virtual voting process would work.”
The letter from Daughtry and Walz comes a day after a contingent of House Democrats wary of swiftly nominating Biden as the party’s pick for reelection circulated another letter raising “serious concerns” about plans for a virtual roll call. Their letter to the Democratic National Committee, which has not yet been sent, says it would be a “terrible idea” to stifle debate about the party’s nominee with the early roll call vote.
The letter comes as a new poll said nearly two-thirds of Democrats think Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let the party nominate a different candidate.
The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February.
The findings underscore the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he tries to silence calls from within his own party to leave the race and tries to convince Democrats that he’s the best candidate to defeat Trump. The poll was conducted mostly before Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Associated Press contributed.