- Joe Biden turned 81 years old on Monday.
- It's a milestone for Biden, but it also prompted fresh concerns about his age.
US President Joe Biden turned 81 years old on Monday.
It's a milestone for Biden, but his age has been a thorny issue for the president, with recent polling showing voters are concerned about his age ahead of a tough reelection campaign next year.
And it raises another obvious question: what happens if a sitting president dies while running for reelection?
Well, in the immediate aftermath, we would get President Kamala Harris — who would be the first female president and just its second Black president.
The US has a clear presidential order of succession outlined in the Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, saying that if the president dies, the vice president takes over.
From an electoral standpoint, Harris would also replace Biden as a Democratic presidential candidate. But his death would almost certainly open the door for other Democrats to jump into the 2024 race.
There's no national deadline to file to run for president of the United States. Instead, filing deadlines vary depending on the state and party.
Many states' deadlines have already passed, however, meaning that state election officials would need to adjust them to allow new candidates to enter the race.
If the president died during primary season — which ends in mid-June — some states may postpone their scheduled primaries.
There's some precedent for this; at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a dozen states postponed their primaries or expanded vote-by-mail options.
And if a sitting president died after the primaries but before their party's convention, the other presidential candidates would have to make a case to every state delegation at the convention for why they should be the party's nominee.
Finally, if a president died after securing their party's nomination but before Election Day, both the Democratic and Republican parties have guidelines in place for selecting an alternate.
In both cases, the parties' rules and bylaws state that they would have the power to vote on another nominee.