The Biden-Harris campaign co-chair declared President Biden the ‘Democratic nominee’ for president before a single vote has been cast.
Former Biden aide Cedric Richmond on Wednesday said that Biden is not debating for his spot on top of the blue presidential ticket and is already the ‘Democratic nominee.’
‘President Biden is the Democratic nominee, along with Vice President Harris,’ Richmond said. ‘And if you look at both parties, when they have an incumbent president, that incoming president participates in no debates and there’s no primary on our side when there’s a primary.’
‘But the key to it is the fact that we’ve already endorsed President Biden,’ the Democratic National Committee (DNC) senior adviser said.
Richmond said that no ‘party has done it’ going ‘back to [Presidents] Reagan and Ford,’ adding, ‘It’s just something that has been well settled.’
‘And it’s just another issue that people want to use as a distraction from us focusing on still delivering for the American people and making sure that we address the issues and the challenges they face,’ Richmond said.
Typically, the party in control of the White House will not hold presidential debates and will throw their hat behind the current president.
It is not unheard of for incumbent presidents to see challenges from their own party — Biden is currently seeing two in the forms of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Marianne Williamson — but parties will typically try to avoid an intra-party fight.
Still, many in both parties have called for primary elections against sitting presidents, noting the exchange of ideas when a president is up for re-election.
Richmond’s announcement comes on the day of the first Republican presidential debate.
Eight candidates are set to take the stage and duke it out for the GOP presidential nomination to battle Biden for the West Wing.
Wednesday almost saw only seven GOP candidates in Milwaukee after North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum tore his ACL playing basketball on Tuesday.
Burgum plans to take the stage amid the injury and will be competing against leading candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
The debate will be televised live on Fox News and FoxNews.com starting at 9 p.m. ET.