With Joe Biden out of the race, Democrats have a choice between Kamala, Hillary and Michelle

Joe Biden's (called Sleepy Joe by conservatives) decision to drop out of his bid for a second term as US president, just three and a half months before the US presidential election, seems to have caught Democratic Party leaders by surprise, although a some of them have been calling for Biden's exit from the race for many months. Faced on Sunday with the accomplished fact of Joe Biden, who through a letter addressed to the American citizens, gave up the presidential race, the democratic leaders did not know how to react when the incumbent president stated in another official post that a supports Kamala Harris, the US Vice President, to become his party's candidate in the November election. If this is the time for Biden to leave his place in the US presidential candidacy to a woman, namely Kamala Harris, then she could also have alternatives, such as Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama, several Democratic leaders said, and the former US president Barack Obama said that the party must choose a candidate who has the necessary strength to overcome Donald Trump in the presidential elections. Basically the three ladies, Harris, Obama and Clinton would be the options from which the Democrats should nominate the party's candidate for the presidential election in November.

Following President Biden's public endorsement of her, Kamala Harris spoke by phone on Sunday with more than 100 Democratic leaders, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If Barack Obama did not publicly express his support for a possible candidacy of Kamala Harris, instead the Clinton family would agree to this option according to sources cited by CNN.

However, that candidate will be designated by the vote of the approximately 4,700 delegates at the Democratic National Convention that would take place in Chicago starting on August 19 or by a virtual roll call of them that would take place at the beginning of August. Rules for nominating the party's new nominee are to be set by the Democratic Committee, which meets tomorrow.

As far as the Democratic Party delegates are concerned, according to the American media we are dealing with two categories. The first includes 3,949 delegates, who were selected through various processes at the national level. About 99 percent of them have committed to voting for Biden, based on his performance in primaries and caucuses across the country.

The second category includes about 750 delegates, so-called automatic delegates or "superdelegates", so named based on their position in the Democratic Party. These delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice, but under normal circumstances they cannot vote in the first round if their votes could affect the results of the nomination (it is not clear whether they will be able to participate in this first round in this case , of the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris).

However, since Joe Biden's withdrawal, the number of Democratic officials and donors supporting Kamala Harris has grown steadily, including, according to CNN and ABC, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidates for Senate, including Andy Kim of New Jersey, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Black Voters Matter, the latter organization succeeding in a Zoom meeting Sunday night to raise $1.5 million for the presidential campaign.

For some of the major donors to Joe Biden's presidential campaign, the US president's decision to drop out of the race and endorse Kamala Harris is the right one.

Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic political strategist, advisor to several sponsors, said, according to CNN: "Kamala Harris is the personification of the American dream, the daughter of immigrants (...). She's also toughness personified: she grew up in my hometown of Oakland, California, and later became the state's top attorney. (...) I can't wait to help elect President Harris."

What is certain is that Vice President Kamala Harris raised $49.6 million in grassroots donations for her campaign after President Joe Biden declared his endorsement, according to campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. Furthermore, @BidenHQ, the rapid response account on the X Network for the Biden-Harris campaign, has officially been renamed @KamalaHQ, showing that the Biden team has moved quickly to the new task at hand.

• The Rise of Harris

Kamala Harris, the daughter of political activists from Berkeley who were immigrants from India and Jamaica, grew up in Oakland and spent much of his political career in California's Bay Area. After earning his law degree from the University of California Hastings College of Law, Harris became an assistant district attorney for Alameda County and later worked with the San Francisco District Attorney. In 2003, Kamala Harris was elected San Francisco's District Attorney, and in 2010, she became California's Attorney General, the first woman, the first person of color, and the first Asian American to hold that position.

In 2016, Harris became a US senator, succeeding former California senator Barbara Boxer. As a senator, Harris stood out for his inquisitorial style when questioning Trump administration officials, as well as Donald Trump's nominees for high-ranking public office, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions among those questioned by Kamala and future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Three years later, in January 2019, he entered the Democratic Party's presidential primary, the following year being one of 12 candidates, including Joe Biden, who wanted the party's nomination for the presidential election. Following his nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden said at the party's convention in August: "I've decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight against Trump and Mike Pence and then lead this nation starting in January 2021."

• Biden, pushed by Democratic leaders to abandon the candidacy

Joe Biden's final decision to leave the presidential race was made within 48 hours, although this was requested by some leaders and sponsors of the Democratic Party even after the debate that the incumbent president had with Donald Trump on June 27 , and in which Biden several incoherent answers. Just days later, on July 2, Lloyd Doggett was the first Democratic leader to call on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, a move joined by other Democratic Party representatives. That request was rejected by Joe Biden, who on July 8 said he wasn't going anywhere and sent a letter to Democratic leaders pleading for unity. However, two days later Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, declared that the issue of the Democratic presidential candidate is not resolved, actor George Clooney asked Biden to step down, a request reiterated by Democratic Senator Peter Welch.

The July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington gave Democratic leaders new reasons to call on Joe Biden to drop out. These include when Biden named Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and Trump named Kamala Harris as Vice President.

The assassination attempt to which Donald Trump was subjected on July 13 increased the chances of the Republican candidate to occupy the chair of the president of the USA, the distance between him and Biden, increasing considerably. On July 17, Biden tests positive for Covid, suspends his campaign and goes into quarantine, at which point Democratic leader Adam Schiff asks him to pass the baton to someone else, a request to which several congressmen of the Democratic Party adhere. The day after the presentation of a TV interview in which Joe Biden did not remember the name of the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, several Democratic leaders, including 30 congressmen and former President Barack Obama, express themselves in the sense of withdrawing the candidacy of the president in office, while the main donors to the presidential campaign are suspending their donation activity.

Following these repeated challenges, challenges also made with the support of the media close to the Democrats, on July 21 Joe Biden decides to withdraw from the presidential race and support the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Biden's decision had nothing to do with any medical problem, a senior White House official told CNN, the decision being made after the US president analyzed the data from the latest polls together with his advisers and some Democratic leaders, which showed that there was no chance of his re-term as US President.

According to the cited source, in addition to his family members, Joe Biden consulted with a very small number of close aides regarding the decision to withdraw from the presidential race. Some of the advisers, including communications adviser Anita Dunn, only learned of the decision minutes before it was posted on the official X Network account, according to sources cited by CNN.

• World leaders respect Biden's decision

Leaders around the world praised Biden's courage to withdraw from the candidacy just 4 months before the election. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Biden for his "unwavering support" in defending his country following the war illegally launched by the Russian Federation, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked the head of the US Administration for his "friendship and steadfast support for the Israeli people" and described him as "a true ally of the Jewish people". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who today was to meet in Washington with Joe Biden, said that he thanks him for everything he has done for Israel and specified that his country will be the strongest ally of the United States in the Middle East regardless who will be elected american president in november. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant thanked Biden for his "steadfast support, especially during the war, invaluable support."

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said US President Joe Biden had made difficult decisions in recent years "thanks to which Poland, America and the world are safer and democracy stronger", and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would refrain from commenting on the decision to Biden, but believes that this was based on the president's desire to find the best political solution in the current context.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol noted that his country will continue to cooperate with the US to further develop the strategic alliance between the two states, while Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro characterized Biden's decision as one that prioritizes family and health , health that would no longer have allowed the US leader "to assume the reins of power, let alone run for the presidency."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated that the leader of the White House had achievements "for his country, for Europe, for the world", while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on the X network that thanks to Joe Biden "the USA overcame the economic crisis since the pandemic and the serious assault on the Capitol and have been exemplary in their support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression".

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said Biden's decision did not surprise the Russian Federation, but he was quick to criticize the current US president's support for Kamala Harris' nomination. Dimitri Peskov stated: "We cannot assess the potential candidacy of Harris (...) because so far her contribution to our relations has not been significant. Her rhetoric was rather unfriendly towards our country".