President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday, and campaign finance experts say there are financial roadblocks to replacing him as the Democratic nominee.

The Biden-Harris campaign brought in a huge cash haul this cycle, reporting $127 million raised in June alone. But after Biden officially withdrew from the race, there are serious questions about whether another candidate would be able to inherit these funds.

While there are several candidates being floated as a Biden replacement, a political fundraiser with knowledge of presidential campaign finance told Fox News Digital that, as of right now, the money ‘is only accessible if your name is Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.’ 

Election law experts told Fox News Digital that Vice President Harris could likely use the campaign funds given that her name is on the Biden-Harris ticket. However, even the vice president could face hurdles with the money. 

According to Trey Trainor, a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, it’s an ‘open-ended question’ whether the funds could be transferred to Harris.

When Biden is replaced as the nominee, legal experts tell Fox the Biden-Harris campaign would be allowed to transfer the funds to the Democratic National Committee, but the campaign arm is limited in how it can distribute that money.

Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have been floated as potential Biden replacements, but the experts do not believe other candidates would be able to easily obtain the funds.

Biden officially endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination after announcing his withdrawal from the race.

With only months until the presidential election and once-presumptive nominee President Biden no longer in the race, the next steps for the Democratic Party may seem somewhat unclear. 

Here is what you need to know about the Democratic Party’s nominating process following Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race. 

Biden was the presumptive nominee for his party, having secured the vast majority of its delegates, which were awarded after primary elections this year. But now that the president has withdrawn, the delegates are no longer pledged to him and are free to vote as they choose.

Now, any eligible candidate can run for the nomination. Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., are often mentioned in the media. If Biden endorses a candidate, that person would have a clear advantage.

In order to become a candidate, someone must receive signatures from at least 300 delegates. A maximum of 50 can come from each state delegation.

To win the nomination, a candidate must receive the vote of a majority of pledged delegates at the party’s roll call vote, which would be 1,976 or more delegates. This is not a ‘popular’ or ‘public’ vote.

The Democratic primaries, which were such votes, have already happened throughout 2024. Biden won almost all those contests and was therefore awarded almost all the pledged Democratic delegates.

The only step left in the process is for delegates to formally nominate a candidate during the party’s ‘roll call vote.’ This is the regular part of the nominating process that would have occurred even without Biden ending his campaign. 

If no candidate reaches a majority in the first round of the roll call, then multiple rounds of voting take place, and superdelegates can also vote. At the Democratic convention a superdelegate is an automatically credentialed delegate — such as party leaders, governors and members of Congress.

No deadlines have passed that would prevent or lock out another eligible Democratic candidate from appearing on a general election ballot.

The Democrats are currently expected to formally nominate a candidate in August but before meeting at their convention, in a ‘virtual’ roll call.

The process and schedule could, however, still change.

A change in candidacy after that point would be settled by the Democratic National Convention. It would certainly be a political disaster and, as time passes, could also present legal and logistical challenges.

President Biden has defiantly remained in the presidential race despite mounting calls from allies to drop out, and speculation that he would bow out as early as this weekend. 

The Biden campaign has hit back against anonymous sources and speculation that Biden would end his campaign in the coming days, suggesting a pressure campaign was building to force Biden’s hand. 

‘There are a lot of anonymous sources out there this week telling y’all what is and isn’t happening on Team Biden-Harris. I’m here – on the record (!) – to give you an overview of what actually happened, what’s to come, and a few thoughts on the very bad things coming out of the Republican National Convention,’ Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Muonoz said in a press release late last week. 

The comment was released shortly following Newsmax’s Mark Halperin reporting that unnamed Democratic sources informed him that Biden will drop out of the race as soon as this weekend, that he would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to take the mantle, and would call for an open convention during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month. 

‘It will happen as early as this weekend. A speech has been drafted for him. He will continue on as president, is his intention. He also will not, I’m told, endorse Vice President Harris as his successor. They’re hoping that he will endorse an open process in which the convention will be open to Vice President Harris and a few other candidates in Chicago to pick the Democratic nominee for president,’ Halperin said on Thursday. 

Axios also speculated the president would drop out this weekend, with unnamed Biden aides allegedly saying the president was warming up to the idea of giving into the calls to bow out. 

The Biden campaign, however, has so far not given an inch on the speculation and calls for the president to drop out, with campaign and White House officials shooting down speculation on social media, releasing press releases and continuing to announce fundraising efforts. 

Biden’s deputy campaign manager doubled down on Sunday that reports of the president dropping out are ‘false’ and that Biden has been clear he is remaining in the race. 

‘It is false. And I think that it is false to continue to try to gin up this narrative. Joe Biden has said he is in this race,’ deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said on MSNBC on Sunday. ‘He is in this race to win it. He is instructing us to continue to carry out a plan to make sure that we are communicating [to as] many voters as possible. Actions speak louder than words, although sometimes, in this case, I wish that our words would speak louder so that people would stop asking this question. But we are doing both. The president has doubled down and said that he is running in this race to win it, and that he is not going anywhere.’

Biden is currently self-isolating in his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday. He was diagnosed while in Las Vegas, forcing the campaign to cancel events in the city as the president recovers. 

Thirty-six Democrats have called on Biden to drop out of the race in the days and weeks following his disastrous debate performance, which put his mental fitness under further scrutiny as he stumbled over his words and appeared more subdued than in previous years. 

Ahead of his COVID diagnosis, Biden hit the campaign trail at a faster clip than before the debate, holding rallies and meetings across the nation, coupled with his official duties as president, including hosting world leaders for a NATO summit earlier this month. Biden delivered a stronger than typical speech during the NATO summit, and received mixed reviews for his first solo press conference of the year. The events, however, have evidently not swayed Democrats that he’s up for the job, as traditional allies continue releasing statements calling on him to drop out. 

‘While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch. And in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election,’ California Rep. Adam Schiff said in a statement last week. 

Despite speculation Biden would drop out as soon as this weekend, the New York Times reported that the president will not drop out ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nentanyahu’s visit to the nation’s capital this week. 

The president also has a fundraiser scheduled with former late night host David Letterman on July 29 in Hawaii and has received support from Squad members to remain in the race. 

‘There have been lots of Democrats who have been giving little anonymous quotes to the press, to some journalist to print, and I’m not here to knock the press on it,’ she said. ‘I’m here to knock my colleagues on it, because to me, I think that’s, and I’m sorry, I’m going to say because it’s after midnight. That’s bulls—. Like, if you have an opinion, say it with your chest and say it in public,’ Squad member, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said last week in defense of Biden. 

The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jamie Harrison, has also notably not called for Biden to pull out of the race, instead saying earlier this month that Biden is the party’s nominee.

‘This ain’t the West Wing… we have had a process, millions voted for Joe Biden and we have our nominee!’ Harrison tweeted on July 2.

Biden is not yet the official nominee for the ticket, but is expected to be formally nominated in a virtual roll call on Aug. 7, DNC Rules Committee members voted Friday. The move leaves Democrats with roughly two weeks to rally renewed support for Biden as their nominee, or for Biden to drop out and let another candidate step up to the job. 

The speculation mounting around Biden dropping out comes as former President Trump was officially nominated as the Republican Party’s choice for president. Trump joined the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, last week, where he announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate and accepted the nomination. 

The RNC was held just two days after an assassination attempt nearly ended Trump’s life, leaving him with an injury to his right ear. A shooter opened fire on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday, injuring Trump and two others, and killing a 50-year-old married dad who was protecting his wife and family from the gunfire. 

Trump addressed the shooting in his highly-anticipated RNC speech, while noting ‘you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell.’ 

‘I’m not supposed to be here tonight,’ he said. ‘I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.’

‘For the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the love shown by that giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in Pennsylvania,’ he added. 

The U.S. Secret Service responded Saturday night to a bombshell report that top officials repeatedly denied past pleas to beef up former President Trump’s security detail, saying in a statement that it depends on ‘state or local partners’ to fill in gaps when it can’t accommodate such requests.

The report from the Washington Post came exactly a week after Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, while speaking at a rally, prior to his 2024 presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had been observed by attendees before the shooting began.

The Post reported that, before the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, top Secret Service officials ‘repeatedly’ denied requests for tighter security measures from Trump’s detail. An official granted the interview to the media outlet on the condition of anonymity.

According to the report, agents tasked with protecting Trump requested additional security resources in the past. These requests involved things such as magnetometers or a larger number of personnel to screen guests. Additional snipers had also reportedly been requested in the past.

Senior officials reportedly told the agents that the Secret Service lacked the resources to fulfill the requests. The Post reviewed multiple requests, but none of them pertained specifically to the Butler rally. 

On Saturday night, the Secret Service released a statement obtained by Fox News Digital explaining that the agency ‘has a vast, dynamic, and intricate mission.’

‘Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure across multiple events, travel, and other challenging environments,’ the statement read. ‘We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology, and specialized operational needs.’

The Secret Service also added that, even if a request is denied, the agency still tries to accommodate in some form to ensure the safety of whoever is being protected.

‘In some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications to ensure the security of the protected,’ the statement added. ‘This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identifying alternatives to reduce public exposure of a protectee.’

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi previously denied the report. ‘This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,’ he previously wrote on X.

Investigations into the breakdowns that led to Trump being shot are underway by both the FBI and a Congressional committee. Questions have already been raised about a potential lack of communication between the state, local and federal workers who were charged with protecting Trump amid numerous reports members of the crowd saw Crooks on a rooftop and warned officials. In addition, there has been fingerprinting between the different levels of law enforcement that were on the scene.

In an interview that will premiere on Fox News Channel on Monday night at 8 p.m. ET, Trump told host Jesse Watters that he was never warned about Crooks, despite the fact that the gunman had been noticed.

‘How did somebody get on that roof?’ Trump asked Watters. ‘And why wasn’t he reported, because people saw he was on that roof.’

‘When you have Trumpers screaming, the woman in the red shirt, ‘There’s a man on the roof,’ and other people, ‘There’s a man on the roof and who’s got a gun,’…that was quite a bit before I walked on the stage. And I would’ve thought someone would’ve done something about it,’ he added.