WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's withdrawal from his reelection bid and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Republican Donald Trump in November scrambled what had once been a settled and suspense-free contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
To help understand what will come next, The Associated Press is surveying the nearly 4,000 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention to determine which candidate they plan to support to be the party's presidential nominee or if they remain undecided. Results will be updated regularly.
The latest results show Harris with more than enough support among delegates to win the nomination on the first round. As of Tuesday afternoon, the AP confirmed that more than 3,000 delegates planned to support the vice president. The number of delegates needed to win the nomination is 1,976. Although it's not binding, the show of support makes Harris the overwhelming frontrunner.
Unlike the AP's count of delegates won during the party's primaries and nominating contests, the survey is an unofficial tally and is only an indication of whom the party will pick to replace Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket against Trump, the former president.
Under Democratic Party rules, delegates are free to support any candidate they choose or change their minds until Democrats conduct an official vote to pick a nominee later this summer. The convention is scheduled for Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, though the party may make its nomination through a virtual roll call before the convention.
The AP is conducting the survey by contacting delegates individually by phone, email, social media accounts or personal interviews. If a delegate makes a public statement indicating support for a candidate, that information is also included in the overall tally. Confirmation from state parties that their entire delegation plans to support a candidate or that a specific number of their delegates support a candidate are also counted.
Candidates typically win delegates based on their performance in various primaries and caucuses, and those delegates are pledged to support that candidate at the convention. While party rules state that delegates are pledged to support a particular candidate only as a matter of ''good conscience,'' past election cycles since the current system was adopted in the 1980s show that delegates rarely, if ever, break their pledge.
Biden had secured enough delegates by March 12 with primary and caucus victories to unofficially clinch the nomination and become the presumptive nominee, and since then he had amassed support from 3,896 out of 3,949 delegates eligible to vote in the first round at the convention.