The Tennessee delegation to the Democratic National Convention was the first set of delegates to meet and announce its votes would go to Vice President Kamala Harris.

By the end of the day Sunday, July 21, delegates from three other states — Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina — also announced they would change their votes from President Joe Biden to Harris just hours after Biden ended his reelection campaign.

President Joe Biden drops out of the 2024 race

The Tennessee group’s virtual discussion Sunday afternoon did not quickly move to a vote. There were questions about the unprecedented situation, whether there was time to consider other contenders, and a disputed deadline to get on the ballot in Ohio.

Tennessee’s 77-member delegation to the Aug. 19-22 convention in Chicago includes the following Memphians:

• U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen
• Memphis Mayor Paul Young
• State House Democratic Leader Karen Camper
• State Senate Democratic Leader Raumesh Akbari
• State Rep. Justin J. Pearson
• Memphis Urban League interim CEO Gale Jones Carson, who is also a former chairwoman of the Shelby County Democratic Party and a long-time member of the party’s state executive committee.
• Bryan Carson, former chairman of Shelby County Democratic Party
• Sarah Freeman, a candidate in the August Democratic primary for the 8th Congressional District
• Lexie Carter, chairwoman of the Shelby County Democratic Party

Most had announced their support of Harris before the Sunday afternoon delegate meeting called by the state’s party leaders. Biden won the March Democratic presidential primary statewide and carried Shelby County with no opposition.

Carter said once the Tennessee Democratic delegates were together online Sunday, there was some debate and lots of questions about how to proceed in an unprecedented situation. But a consensus was already forming with Biden’s endorsement of his vice president.

“Most people had demonstrated an appreciation for the president as well as confidence in Kamala Harris’ ability to take this on — to win and that she was well prepared to be the president,” she told The Daily Memphian. “I think we had about seven who all expressed similar confidence but said they thought it was a little early. But, at the end, we all agreed on the time frame and moved forward with the vote.”

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The closest precedent to Biden’s move was in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson ended his reelection campaign in March as the presidential primaries had just gotten underway and well ahead of both summer party conventions.

Delegates pledged to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates who drop out of the race before the summer conventions is a familiar enough scenario that they are covered in both parties’ rules.

For the Tennessee Democratic delegates Sunday, the question was timing.

Carter said there was some discussion of trying to hold an “open primary” for the presidential nomination. Not a primary with voters going to the polls, but a competition for the votes of the Tennessee delegates to the Chicago convention.

“I don’t see how that would be feasible at this point,” she said. “They couldn’t define exactly how that would work, in other words, having more than one choice for who the nominee would be. The delegates are the only ones that can decide that at this point.”

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Carter said the “elephant in the room” Sunday during the virtual discussion was some tactical questions about whether a Black woman could win the general election against Donald Trump.

“A lot of people think that the way we got Trump in the first place was because we had just left eight years of having a Black president,” said Carter, who also is Black. “Not that people are racists. But they wonder if she can win because of that. … I think yesterday, I would have probably been somewhere in that group questioning it. But I think under the circumstances, the question is Kamala or Trump, and that’s an easy win for Kamala. That’s where I think we are.”

Carter said Biden had problems with women 18 to 35 years old who thought he was too old, as well as younger voters who thought he was too centrist.

What carried the day for her and others was the fundraising advantage Harris has with access to the Biden campaign’s war chest of an estimated $200 million. Because Harris was Biden’s running mate, she has access to the money.

It’s a campaign on a short timeline of less than four months to the November Election Day with early voting starting in Tennessee in mid-October.

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Access to that much cash became even more important among the Tennessee delegates, Carter said, as they talked about the need to get on the ballot in Ohio ahead of the Chicago convention.

The deadline to get on the ballot in Ohio is a controversial topic because of a bill Ohio’s legislature passed and its governor signed in June. The law moves the deadline to get on the presidential ballot there from before the Democratic National Convention to after, putting it in line with other states’ deadlines.

DNC chairman Jaime Harrison claims the new Ohio law wouldn’t take effect until Sept. 1 and thus wouldn’t apply to this presidential election. Harrison was pushing for a virtual roll call vote of delegates nationwide in advance of the Chicago convention even before Biden dropped out.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Sunday, as Biden’s withdrawal raised new questions about Ohio’s deadline, that the Democrats had to decide by Sept. 1.

But Carter said the deadline still came up in Sunday’s delegate discussion before they voted to back Harris. She said the Democratic convention’s rules committee is working under the premise that the deadline to get on the Ohio ballot for whoever the Democratic nominee is remains Aug. 7.

“The rules committee, they are under a tremendous amount of pressure to do it quick,” she said.

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Carter was surprised by Biden’s withdrawal just five days after she saw him speak at the NAACP national convention in Las Vegas.

“I was 20 or 30 feet away from him. I saw a person who was on point, who was very capable, who was strong. He got a standing ovation,” she said. “He made a very good stump speech, and everybody was there with him. That had me going. Even though I was hearing it was close and stuff, I just didn’t buy into it because he said he wasn’t going to do it.”