Republicans Won’t Be Able to Stop Kamala Harris’ Nomination — Lawyer

Republican challenges won’t stop Democrats from nominating Kamala Harris to run for president, an attorney has said.

Janos Marton was reacting to a campaign by the conservative Heritage Foundation to mount legal challenges to Harris’ presidential nomination in key battleground states. Marton, who previously ran for district attorney in New York and who is now chief advocacy officer for the liberal advocacy group Dream.Org, told Newsweek that the challenges are unlikely to work.

“I am doubtful that any legal challenges to Harris’ ballot line would stand, provided that she is nominated at the Democratic National Convention,” he said. “Even if certain state laws initially bind delegates to President Biden, we’ve already seen a number of state delegations commit to Vice President Harris, and that number will approach unanimity in the absence of a serious challenger.”

Harris has already secured enough support to secure her nomination for the 2024 presidential race, according to the Associated Press, which reported on Monday that she has the support of at least 2,214 delegates, surpassing the 1,976 needed to win the nomination on the first ballot.

Out of the total 2,538 delegates, 57 remain undecided, according to the survey. On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection and endorsed Harris.

Newsweek contacted the Harris campaign via email on Tuesday for comment.

Marton said that the party has seen difficult nomination processes in the past.

“Keep in mind, the 2008 Democratic primary, which was in some way more unsettled than this situation, resulted in a clean convention even later than the DNC will be this year, and there were no legal challenges to that ticket,” Marton said.

In 2008, the party was sharply divided between those who supported Senator Barack Obama and those who supported Hillary Clinton.

On Sunday, House speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that Republicans will challenge Democrats‘ right to switch Joe Biden for Kamala Harris.

“I think they’ve got legal hurdles in some of these states,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “And it’ll be litigated, I would expect, on the ground there.”

Democrats shot back that Republicans have no legal basis for a challenge.

“The Democratic nominee for president will be on all 50 state ballots, there is no basis for any legal challenge. Period,” Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.

The Heritage Foundation conservative think tank has said it has reserved millions of dollars for a nationwide challenge.

The executive director of the Heritage Foundation‘s Oversight Project, Mike Howell, told Newsweek that the difficulty of replacing a candidate varies from state to state.

“What would make a state the most difficult for replacement depends on timing and how they [the Democrats] do it,” he said.

The Heritage Foundation views swing states Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada as likely arenas for legal challenges, given the complexity of switching presidential candidates in those states.