Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden on Tuesday raised the prospect that the Democratic National Convention scheduled for mid-July would have to be postponed or modified because of the expanding coronavirus epidemic.
Appearing on MSNBC, Mr. Biden was asked if he could really envision “every prominent Democrat in this country from all 50 states inside a hot arena 104 days from now.”
“It’s hard to envision that,” said Mr. Biden, who appears destined to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
“Again, we should listen to the scientists,” he said.
Mr. Biden pointed out that one of the reasons the Democrats’ convention was scheduled for July was so it wouldn’t conflict with the 2020 Olympic Games. The Olympics have now been postponed until 2021.
“There is more time now,” he said.
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mr. Biden said there should be party conventions, primaries and elections at the same time that public safety is maintained.
“It may mean that you have a circumstance where you have drive-in voting. Literally, you pull up and you vote,” he said. “There’s a lot of ways to do it, but we should be talking about it now.”
Though many states have moved to postpone their presidential primaries, Wisconsin’s April 7 primary is on for now, leaving officials in the state scrambling to make accommodations.
President Trump said last week there was “no way” he was going to cancel the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 24-27 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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