Biden: Online convention possible

Start review of options for November election now, he urges

In this image from video provided by the Biden for President campaign, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual press briefing Wednesday, March 25, 2020. (Biden for President via AP)
In this image from video provided by the Biden for President campaign, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual press briefing Wednesday, March 25, 2020. (Biden for President via AP)

WASHINGTON -- Joe Biden said Sunday that the Democratic National Convention, already delayed until August because of the coronavirus, may need to take place online as the pandemic continues to reshape the race for the White House. The presidential candidate also said officials should think about how ballots will be cast in November.

The party "may have to do a virtual convention," the former vice president said. "The idea of holding the convention is going to be necessary. We may not be able to put 10, 20, 30,000 people in one place," he told ABC's This Week, calling an online convention "very possible."

Biden has a commanding lead in the number of delegates needed to secure his party's presidential nomination at a convention in Milwaukee, originally scheduled for mid-July. Democrats hoped an early gathering would give the party more time to unify around a nominee who could defeat President Donald Trump in November. But officials announced Thursday that they were taking the unprecedented step of postponing the convention until August, just before the Republican National Convention is scheduled.

The once-crowded Democratic primary has dwindled to Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But both have switched to addressing supporters online from home, with travel and campaign rallies -- like many facets of American life -- suspended for weeks because of the outbreak.

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"I'm confident our convention planning team and our partners will find a way to deliver a convention in Milwaukee this summer that places our Democratic nominee on the path to victory in November," Joe Solmonese, chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention Committee, said in a statement.

The committee suggested it was considering changes to the format, size and schedule of the four-day convention, which usually involves thousands of delegates, media and party officials all standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a vast arena, as well as numerous parties and other side events.

Biden publicly endorsed delaying the convention before the move to do so was announced, and said Sunday that the extraordinary measure of holding one entirely online is still not a certainty.

"What we do between now and then is going to dictate a lot of that as well," he said. "But my point is that I think you just got to follow the science. Listen to the experts."

Biden said the U.S. has "never allowed any crisis," from the Civil War to the 1918 flu pandemic, to interrupt democratic processes such as elections. "We've never, never let our democracy play second fiddle," he said.

On the November election, he suggested a discussion should start now about the process for conducting the vote and whether most ballots will be cast by mail -- which he said is not the preferred route.

"How are we going to make it available to everybody?" he said.

Biden also said he planned to wear a mask in public, heeding new federal guidelines that Americans use face coverings when venturing out. That contradicts Trump, who says he's choosing not do that.

"He may not like how he looks in a mask," Biden said of the president, adding that it was a mattering of following science.

"That's what they're telling us," he added.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Surgeon General Jerome Adams offered some of the starkest warnings about the virus yet, saying. "This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans' lives, quite frankly." But he appeared to play down the mask issue, saying that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines emphasize that such coverings are voluntary and shouldn't be used as a substitute for the "social distancing" that has kept millions at home.

"The president is making a choice that's appropriate for him," Adams said before showing off a mask that he said he wears in public. "What I want Americans to know is, if you're going out in public and you're going to be closer than 6 feet to other people, you can use a cloth facial covering."

Trump said Saturday that there's no contingency plans for the Republican National Convention, due to be held in North Carolina in late August. He expressed confidence the U.S. would be operating more normally by then.

Information for this article was contributed by Will Weissert of The Associated Press and by Steve Geimann of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 04/06/2020

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