Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race for the White House leaves a void on the Democratic presidential ticket that the party is now rushing to fill.
Biden has endorsed US Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party's candidate in the presidential race, but other names were also emerging.
Below are some possible replacements:
Kamala Harris
She seems like the obvious choice and Biden has given her his endorsement.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been on the verge of the Oval Office since Biden's inauguration in January 2021, is well positioned to be the standard-bearer for the Democratic Party.
Harris, 59, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, is a pioneer.
She was the first Black person and the first woman to serve as California's attorney general, and later the first U.S. senator of South Asian descent.
She is now the first woman and the first black vice president.
During her career as a prosecutor, Harris had a reputation for being tough, a trait she could leverage in a campaign expected to focus on crime and immigration.
But some progressive Democrats have criticized his strict punishment for minor offenders, saying it disproportionately affects minorities.
Harris also suffers from a dismal approval rating, which could prompt Democrats to look for another solution.
Gavin Newsom
There is no rule that states that a running mate automatically replaces the presidential candidate if he or she withdraws. That is why the name of California Governor Gavin Newsom keeps coming up.
The 56-year-old Democrat, a former mayor of San Francisco, has been in charge of the Golden State, the most populous in the United States, for five years and has turned it into a haven for access to abortion.
Newsom has strongly endorsed Biden and dismissed rumors of replacing him before the Democrat's withdrawal, but he has also kept his own presidential ambitions under wraps.
In recent months, he has ramped up his international travel, run multiple ads promoting his career and poured millions of dollars into a political action committee, fueling speculation that he will run in 2028. So why not 2024?
Gretchen Whitmer
Another possible Democratic candidate is Gretchen Whitmer, the 52-year-old governor of Michigan.
His state has a strong working-class population and large Black and Arab-American communities — all key voting groups that Biden struggled to court.
Whitmer, a fierce critic of Trump, is perhaps best known for being the target of a kidnapping plot masterminded by a far-right militia group.
Michigan will be one of the key swing states in the Nov. 5 presidential election, a strong argument, according to her supporters, for nominating Whitmer as their candidate.
Josh Shapiro
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro leads the most undecided state in the November race.
The 51-year-old, who was elected in November 2022 with a convincing victory over a conservative rival and took office in early 2023, was previously twice elected state attorney general.
He convicted Catholic priests who had sexually abused thousands of children and prosecuted Purdue Pharma, the maker of the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin.
Shapiro is an effective speaker and an outspoken centrist, qualities that could propel him to national office.
The rest
Other names floating around include Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, but so far their chances appear limited at best.
Also mentioned are Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who both ran against Biden in the 2020 primaries.
