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If Biden steps down, his candidate successor will have a hard time, as being lesser known. (S)he will need time to "build up". That is clearly a disadvantage, and probably it is the strong argument for the Democratic Party of the USA to keep him in place.

Replacing him is a possibility, at least on the level of open communication of the Democratic Party, but as time is going away, so will have the successor lesser and lesser chance to win over Trump. In this matter, time works for Biden.

What is the point, where we will be able to say with a high probability, that Biden will remain?

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    Lots of comments deleted. Please remember the purpose of comments. Don't use comments for debating the subject matter of the question or for irrelevant side-discussions. Use it to discuss how the question could be improved.
    – Philipp
    Commented Jul 8 at 8:22

2 Answers 2

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The deadline for Ohio’s ballot is August 7th, and the DNC will hold a virtual roll call before the actual convention to make sure this deadline is met. The party will not want to nominate someone who is not on every ballot, so August 7th. If they did let that deadline pass, the convention is August 19th so that would be when a nominee would absolutely be picked.

For what it’s worth I don’t think the replacement would struggle to get their name recognition up. It would be unprecedented media coverage. The bigger challenge is probably rallying behind one candidate quickly.

Update: Ohio has extended its deadline, but the DNC has not commented on their plans to change the roll call: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/04/dnc-delegates-want-time-nominating-biden-election

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    This won't be the first election cycle that the convention and nomination happens after some states deadline, in the end that deadline will get extended just as it has in the past.
    – Joe W
    Commented Jul 7 at 0:38
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    @JoeW - I follow your point. I am not speculating though. The DNC stated they intend to nominate Biden before the convention via a virtual roll call, in response to the Ohio deadline. Ohio has since extended the deadline, but the DNC has not stated that they plan to drop the roll call. It’s causing some churn among delegates. axios.com/2024/07/04/… Commented Jul 7 at 5:00
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    I don’t get the hostility, it’s not like you cited sources on previous deadlines extending. The roll call is a real thing. We both were a step behind because Ohio had already moved the deadline. Commented Jul 7 at 14:02
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    And if the candidate were the current Vice President, which is the name I’ve heard mentioned, she already has significant name recognition because she’s the VP.
    – bob
    Commented Jul 7 at 14:59
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    According to ballotpedia.org/…, North Carolina's date is Aug 2, and Georgia's data is July 9.
    – Just Me
    Commented Jul 7 at 17:01
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What is the point, where we will be able to say with a high probability, that Biden will remain?

You can say that now already. Biden has repeatedly made it clear that he has no intentions of stepping down. There is no legal way to force him to because his pledged delegates need to support him.

It would be foolhardy for the DNC to force him out anyway. Even after the debate, Trump is still only about 4% ahead in the polls. There is no consensus among the Democratic party who should replace Biden if he does drop out. There is no nationally popular Democrat who has indicated that (s)he is interested in running in Biden's place. A bitter fight over replacing him and then over who his replacement will be just isn't prudent right now.

This isn't in support of Biden staying in. It's just an explanation of why with all the bluster about him stepping down, it can be assumed with high probability even now that he won't.

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    As far I know, the Democratic Party of the USA can nominate a different, but eligible person. Although having an open infight between Biden and the Party would be probably political suicide. But he might have numerous reasons to silently step down (and help the next candidate in the campaign as he only can, at least publicly), if the power players of the party ask it. I think, what is most strongly against it: if there had been a serious plan for that, then the Democratic Party had already done it from the beginning.
    – Gray Sheep
    Commented Jul 7 at 17:13
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    @GraySheep After Biden's 8 years of being Vice President, 4 years of being the "senior" Democrat and presumptive next-in-line, and then another almost-4-years as the incumbent President, I'd think it's reasonable to assume that after those 16 years there are a lot of Biden supporters in positions of power in the Democratic Party. I think it's safe to say that it's hard if not impossible to take a large bureaucracy - such as a large national political party - in any direction the bulk of its mid-level managers don't want to go in.
    – Just Me
    Commented Jul 7 at 20:02
  • protectdemocracy.org/work/…
    – user121330
    Commented Jul 8 at 6:16
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    This isn't an answer to the question. It's clear OP is asking about a procedural deadline, not about how sure we are of Biden's intentions. There are lots of past examples of party leaders promising to stay on and then resigning shortly afterwards; there are few examples of nominees being changed after procedural deadlines to do so have passed. I think it's fair to say that "high probability" means the latter, not the former.
    – kaya3
    Commented Jul 8 at 8:25
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    It's worth noting that current Betfair odds (which historically have had higher predictive power than polls) only give Biden an implied probability of 62% to be the Democratic nominee. A few days ago, Harris had a higher implied probability than Biden of being the next president (this has now reversed but the two still aren't that far apart with Biden at 14.7% and Harris at 10.2%). So I don't think we are yet at the point where we can say with "high probability" that Biden will not be replaced.
    – JBentley
    Commented Jul 10 at 11:29

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