Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has found himself in a confusing set of circumstances surrounding the virtual vote where Democrats could make President Joe Biden their party’s nominee in the first week of August.
It comes as Biden has rebuffed calls from some in his party to quit the race after his debate performance against Donald Trump. A new AP-NORC poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters want Biden to step out of the race.
The Democratic National Convention’s rules committee will meet on Friday to discuss its plans, according to a letter sent to members obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, and will finalize them next week. The letter from co-chairs Bishop Leah D. Daughtry and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz states that the virtual vote won’t take place before Aug. 1 but that the party is still committed to holding a vote before Aug. 7, which had been Ohio’s filing deadline.
“We will not be implementing a rushed virtual voting process,” Daughtry and Walz wrote, “though we will begin our important consideration of how a virtual voting process would work.”
On Wednesday, during a press conference in Milwaukee, Walz said the Secretary of State in Ohio has made it clear that they could still do that and added it is no coincidence that the Republican pick for Vice President, JD Vance, is from Ohio.
"Ohio's legislature, in the virtual ballot, the timing of it was the initial part of making the virtual ballot, making sure our delegates as they got there committed to Biden and Harris, to cast those votes," Walz said. "And the timing of the convention makes it so that we need to get that in ahead of time."
Walz then said that Friday's meeting has been scheduled for many months and it was never meant to be the virtual roll call.
"It'll be setting out the agenda together as the rules committee moving forward," explained Walz. "That virtual vote won't happen before the first of August and we just need to get it done, probably by the 15th of August to make sure that those signatures on things are in to the Secretary of States. And it's including states, I believe Washington's August 20th, the second day of our convention, so those are the reasons for It."
Later, a post on X from NBC News' Sahil Kapur says a spokesperson for Walz claimed he "misspoke" about August 15, and actually meant August 7.
"He should have said it’s Aug 7 for Ohio," said the spokesperson. "Aug 15 is the rough date we have in our head for the other states which is what he’s mixing up."
The party announced in May that it would hold an early roll call to ensure Biden would qualify for the ballot in Ohio, which originally had an Aug. 7 deadline, but the state has since changed its rules. The Biden campaign insists that the party must operate under Ohio’s initial rules to ensure Republican lawmakers can’t mount legal challenges to keep the president off the ballot.
The letter from Daughtry and Walz comes a day after a contingent of House Democrats wary of swiftly nominating Biden as the party’s pick for reelection circulated another letter raising “serious concerns” about plans for a virtual roll call. Their letter to the Democratic National Committee, which has not yet been sent, says it would be a “terrible idea” to stifle debate about the party’s nominee with the early roll call vote.
“It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats,” said the letter obtained by the AP.
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.