New Delhi: In January 2025, Donald Trump will officially be declared President of the United States by Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent and the current vice president, in accordance with the country’s electoral processes.
Harris is also the president of the Senate, and in that role will preside over the counting of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress.
However, Harris will not be the first sitting vice-president to announce their presidential opponent as the next US president.
Al Gore was the last sitting vice president who attempted to win the race to the White House in the US elections held in November 2000. Gore, the Democratic nominee, lost to his Republican opponent George W. Bush, and declared Bush the next US president in a joint session of Congress on 6 January, 2001.
“George W. Bush of the state of Texas has received for the president of the United States 271 votes. Al Gore of the state of Tennessee has received 266 votes. May God bless our new president and new vice president and may God bless the United States of America,” said Gore at the joint session of Congress in January 2001.
The requirement that the vice president, as president of the Senate, announce the count of the electoral college is part of the US electoral system. However, if Harris chooses to, she can skip the counting and then it would be up to the president pro tempore of the Senate to announce the results of the electoral college.
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Vice presidents who had to declare opponent as US president
Three vice-presidents in the last 70 years have had to declare their opponent the next president of the US.
Prior to Gore, Hubert Humphrey, vice president between 1965 and 1969, was the Democratic candidate for the presidential election held in 1968. Humphrey, whose path to becoming the Democratic candidate was similar to Harris’s, lost the election to Republican Richard Nixon.
Humphrey was chosen to run the presidential race after his boss and the then sitting president, Lyndon B. Johnson, announced that he would not seek the party’s nomination in a televised address on 31 March 1968. Johnson’s exit paved the way for Humphrey to become the Democratic candidate, just as Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race this year led to Harris’s nomination.
Like this year, the Democratic National Convention in 1968 was held in Chicago and was contentious, with at least 7,000 protesters hitting the streets in anti-war protests. The convention is where the party’s official candidate is nominated.
Humphrey lost the election to Nixon, and in his role had to declare his Republican opponent the next US president. However, the then vice president chose to skip the sitting of the joint session of the Congress to attend the funeral of the first secretary-general of the United Nations, Trygve Lie.
It was up to Democrat Richard Russell, the president pro tempore of the Senate, to announce Nixon’s election.
Almost a decade earlier, Nixon himself had declared his Democratic opponent John F. Kennedy the next president of the US.
Nixon, a two-term vice president during the tenure of Dwight D. Eisenhower between 1953 and 1961, was the Republican nominee for the US presidency in 1960.
He lost the election to Kennedy and presided over the counting of the electoral college votes, by which he lost his bid to the presidency.
Role of vice president in US electoral process
Elections are fixed in the US, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
In the US electoral system, by choosing a presidential candidate, citizens point to the candidate that they want the electors of their state to vote for at a meeting of electors. The state administration selects the individuals who will be the electors.
Once the votes of the public have been counted, every state prepares certificates of ascertainment of the election result. This year, according to the US National Archives, this has to be done by 11 December. On 17 December, the electors will meet in their respective states and vote for the president and the vice-president in separate ballots.
These electoral votes are then sent to the president of the Senate, that is, the vice president, and the archivist of the United States.
In 2024, the date by which the votes of the electors have to be received by Harris and the archivist is 25 December, according to the National Archives.
On 6 January 2025, a joint session of the US Congress will be convened, presided over by Harris. The vice president will preside over the counting of the electoral votes and announce the final count.
Due to this system, there have been times when vice presidents have also had to announce their own victory on the floor of the joint session of the Congress.
In 1989, George H.W. Bush declared himself the next president of the US, after winning the 1988 election. Bush Sr was the first vice president since 1836 to declare himself the next US president.
Martin Van Buren, one of the founders of the modern Democratic Party, was the vice president who declared himself the next president in the wake of the 1836 elections.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)