A few days before the party convention, the Democrats have not yet updated their party platform to replace Biden with Harris

WASHINGTON– Four days before the opening of the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago, the wrong presidential candidate is named in the party platform.

The Democrats’ platform – essentially a document outlining the party’s goals and policy positions – has not been updated since the draft was released on July 13, eight days before President Joe Biden dropped his candidacy for re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

The committee responsible for putting together the program worked on its draft for more than a year, leaving room for comments and changes from key voices earlier this summer. But the language that would be presented to the convention for delegates’ approval has not been changed since Biden dropped out of the race. And the rules panel is not scheduled to meet to update the program before the convention begins on Monday.

Harris has not released a detailed list of her policy positions since becoming the Democratic nominee, but her campaign aides have indicated that she no longer holds some of the more liberal positions she took during her first presidential run in 2020, including advocating for a ban on hydraulic fracturing. The policy platform, which typically lays out a party’s positions with heavy involvement from the presidential candidate’s allies, also currently offers no insight into her direct views on major issues.

The program is not binding, but some Democrats criticized Republicans for not being more transparent when they adopted their party’s 16-page program during the Republican convention in Milwaukee last month – including changing the document to align more closely with former President Donald Trump’s positions on abortion and other key issues.

“The Democratic platform will embody the values ​​of our party and build on the historic gains Democrats made during the Biden-Harris administration,” the Democratic National Committee said in a statement on Thursday. “The platform committee has worked carefully with stakeholders from all corners of our party to develop a bold, progressive agenda for the next four years, and the platform that delegates will vote on at the convention will be a reflection of that process.”

Nevertheless, the preamble to the July draft program states: “President Biden, Vice President Harris and the Democrats are stepping up to get the job done” – which of course is no longer true since Biden is no longer in the race.

The Democrats’ proposed platform is 80 pages long and focuses on detailing how the Biden-Harris ticket differs from Trump’s, a language that may still hold even if the party’s ticket is now different.

She mocks the former president and current Republican presidential candidate for being “focused not on opportunity and optimism, but on revenge and retribution; not on the American people, but on himself.” She accuses Trump and his party of being determined to “curtail our basic personal freedoms, dictate what choices women can make in health care, ban books, and tell people who they can love.”

Most of the program’s core messages support the work of the Biden administration. In the weeks since launching her presidential campaign, Harris has spoken generally about supporting the Biden administration’s key goals.

That is, the program from the remaining draft election is consistent with many of their views. However, the fact that the names of the candidates have not been changed suggests that the new list was not as influenced as usual when drawing up the list of candidates for whom they would fight in the event of a victory in the White House.

The draft Democratic platform calls for restoring abortion rights nationwide, continuing to promote green energy initiatives that can create jobs and help slow climate change, limiting child care costs for low-income families, and urging Congress to approve a path to American citizenship for people who are in the country illegally for “long-term” periods.

It also states that Israel’s right to self-defense is an “iron guarantee,” while supporting the Biden administration’s efforts to negotiate a permanent ceasefire that could end fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.