Biden Is Out. Now What?

President Biden's withdrawal leaves Democrats with decisions to make. He's endorsed his vice president as his successor, but there are many moving parts involved; it's not as simple as Biden transferring his pending nomination to Kamala Harris. The decision on the party's next standard-bearer is now up to 3,937 Democratic delegates, the New York Times reports. Other factors include:

• Money: Under federal law, a candidate for vice president is entitled to use the money raised by the ticket's campaign, per USA Today. "If Harris remains on the ticket, as either the presidential or vice presidential candidate, the new ticket would maintain access to all the funds," Saurav Ghosh of the Campaign Legal Center, told Reuters. But the director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Elections & Government Program said there are gray areas. "It's not crystal clear because I'm not sure if the people who drafted the Federal Election Campaign Act anticipated this situation," said Dan Weiner. The Biden-Harris campaign reported raising $127 million in June.

• Delegates: The Democratic National Convention, scheduled for Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, technically will be an open one, per the AP. Party rules bar Biden from reassigning his delegates to anyone else; the nominee is their call, said an analyst in a Brookings Institution podcast. "The primaries elect delegates to the convention, but the legal authority for choosing the nominee of the Democratic Party, or for that matter, the Republican Party, is not the primaries, it is the delegates voting in convention," said Elaine Kamarck, per USA Today. "When that happens, you have a formal nominee." The voting body will consist of nearly 4,000 delegates from the states, territories, and District of Columbia, per the AP, plus more than 700 superdelegates consisting of party leaders, certain elected officials, and former presidents and vice presidents.

• No. 2 nominee: The vice presidential nomination goes to a convention vote separate from the presidential one. Usually, the convention ratifies the presidential nominee's choice. Should Harris solidify her support in time, she could announce her choice at ask the delegates to ratify it. In a prolonged battle, the vice presidential slot could become a bargaining chip, per the AP, as it was in the political conventions of earlier eras.

In a letter sent to the Federal Election Commission late Sunday afternoon, per the Washington Post, the Biden for President campaign officially changed its name to Harris for President. (More President Biden 2024 stories.)