The Democratic presidential primary will not be wrapped up by July.
Planners at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) initially scheduled the party’s nominating convention for the week of July 13.
But, as several states postponed their primaries due to coronavirus fears, questions arose as to whether the DNC would hold its convention as originally planned.
On Thursday, Joe Solmonese, the Democratic National Convention CEO, announced that the event would be pushed back to the week of August 17.
“After a great deal of scenario planning and giving thought to how it is this event can have the greatest impact in the electoral process and the greatest impact in terms of what we can bring to Milwaukee, we felt the best decision, not knowing all the answers, was to delay this,” Solomese said.
DNC Chairman Tom Perez hailed the decision to delay the convention, “Leadership means being able to adapt, and that’s exactly what our party is doing.”
The decision comes days after former Vice President Joe Biden (D) said that it is “hard to envision” that the convention would occur as initially planned.
“We ought to be able to do what we were able to do in the middle of the Civil War all the way through to World War II — have Democratic and Republican conventions and primaries and elections, and still have public safety,” Biden added.
Watch his comments below:
Drive-thru voting? A virtual Democratic convention? @JoeBiden talks about the changes we could see to the 2020 election because of #coronavirus.
— 11th Hour (@11thHour) April 1, 2020
Learn more: https://t.co/4eJZK3ti2L#11thHour pic.twitter.com/5DOeH56qvG
On March 23, a spokesperson for the convention planning committee said that DNC officials were “exploring a range of contingency options to ensure we can deliver a successful convention without unnecessary risk to public health.”
The Hill reports that Biden aides said he lobbied the party to delay the convention.
The Republican National Convention is scheduled to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina, the week of August 24.
The decision to push back the convention comes as the latest data finds that the U.S. has over 226,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, as of Thursday afternoon.