As Dems embrace Harris, GOP calls it an undemocratic ‘coup’ against Biden

The Democratic Party’s eleventh-hour move to replace President Joe Biden on the 2024 ticket has energized voters and sparked a windfall of donations. But it’s also drawing criticism that the process has been less than democratic. Having first staged a primary in which Mr. Biden faced no serious challenger, partly by design, Democratic leaders have now overwhelmingly lined up behind Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of next month’s convention in Chicago.

If, as seems almost certain, Ms. Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, she will have been selected without a single primary vote cast for her or her running mate (unless she taps Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who mounted a lonely challenge against Mr. Biden). 

Before withdrawing on Sunday, Mr. Biden had repeatedly cited the 14 million votes cast for him in state primaries as a reason to stay in the race. “The voters – and the voters alone – decide the nominee of the Democratic Party,” he wrote in a July 8 letter. “Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned.”

Republicans accuse Democrats of hypocrisy – and some invoke 25th Amendment

Republicans are trying to turn this argument against Democrats, accusing them of bypassing proper democratic processes – a scarlet letter of hypocrisy, they add, from a party that labels former President Donald Trump a threat to democracy. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Mr. Biden had “succumbed to a coup” from party elites and donors, a phrase echoed by other Trump allies, who lament wasted GOP campaign dollars spent attacking Mr. Biden. 

“They have subverted democracy [using the legal system] and are coronating the VP without a single vote,” says Republican pollster Robert Blizzard in a text message, referring to accusations from Mr. Trump and his allies that Democrats leveraged the judicial system against the former president. Mr. Trump was convicted in May of criminal fraud by a jury in New York and faces multiple state and federal criminal indictments. “Democrats have lost a lot of credibility on the threat to democracy argument with voters.” 

Other Republicans are accusing Ms. Harris of being part of a coverup to mislead voters about Mr. Biden’s health. Texas Rep. Chip Roy filed a resolution last to month calling on Biden Cabinet members to use the 25th Amendment to remove the president. “What did Jill [Biden] know and when did she know it? What did the staff know? What did the vice president know?” he asked Politico. 

Bad debate shifted voter views of Biden

But while the recent shakeup on the Democratic ticket hasn’t followed the standard playbook, it’s in no way a “coup,” say analysts. In many ways, it speaks to how political parties operate – and how they respond to what constituents want. 

After last month’s disastrous debate, polls showed most Democratic voters concluded Mr. Biden was not up to the job of beating Mr. Trump in November. Democratic leaders who pushed for a new candidate were listening to their voters, not dictating to them, says Julia Azari, a politics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. 

“What you’re seeing here is a party taking itself seriously as a representative body,” she says. “It would be a great thing if we could have democracy all the time, where people’s viewpoints are taken into account more directly, but that isn’t always feasible.” While some voters may question the steps that led to Mr. Biden’s dramatic exit, most are unlikely to pay much attention to the process, she adds.

How parties – not just voters – affect nomination processes

And while party leaders may have flexed their muscles, that’s how it’s supposed to work. In back-to-back election cycles, Democrats have demonstrated an ability to move quickly and overwhelmingly to try to shape outcomes in the best electoral interests of the party. During the 2020 primary race, after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, appeared on track to potentially capture the nomination, voters and party leaders in South Carolina rallied around Mr. Biden, giving him a key victory. His rivals from the party’s more mainstream wing then immediately dropped out and coalesced behind him. Senator Sanders eventually conceded to Mr. Biden, who went on to defeat then-President Trump. 

Once in the White House, Mr. Biden pushed to make South Carolina the first official Democratic primary in 2024, reinforcing an already huge advantage as an incumbent president running for reelection. Only Congressman Phillips ran against him, along with Marianne Williamson, a self-help author who also ran in 2020. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., began his campaign as a Democrat but switched to become an independent candidate. 

The result was that Mr. Biden had a clear path to nomination – until a majority of his own party concluded he couldn’t win in November. The subsequent stampede to support Ms. Harris reflects the determination of Democrats not to be consumed by a divisive internal fight with less than four months to go, says Susan Stokes, who directs the Chicago Center on Democracy. “There’s good reasons for a party that wants to win presidential elections and other elections not to tear the party apart” in a nomination contest.

Election-year battle over democracy may continue 

Still, Republicans may continue to raise questions about how Ms. Harris became the nominee, says Mr. Blizzard, president and founder of UpONE Insights, a GOP firm. Among other things, it could help to blunt any attacks on Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. “I’d expect Democrats to talk far more about saving abortion rights than saving democracy over the next few months,” he says. 

Others say Democrats are likely to continue framing Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy, highlighting his admiration for authoritarian leaders and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That was part of Mr. Biden’s strategy in the 2022 midterms, in which Republicans fell short of expectations.

To compare Mr. Trump’s record with complaints about Ms. Harris’ nomination process is spurious, says Ms. Stokes. Even open primaries – where no incumbent is running – are shaped by candidates’ access to money, media, and elite endorsements. “The way that we are given candidates to choose among is not entirely democratic. But that’s a rather minor point compared to a political party that will not accept a lost election,” she says. 

Note: This story has been updated to correct the name of Robert Blizzard’s firm. It is UpONE Insights.