WASHINGTON: Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race for the White House is still a rather improbable scenario, but the rumour mill is pumping out myriad possibilities as to who could replace him atop the Democratic ticket.

Here is a look at the names being circulated:

She seems like the obvious choice.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been a heartbeat away from the Oval Office since Biden's January 2021 swearing in, would be well positioned to be the Democratic Party's standard-bearer.

The 59-year-old Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, is a trailblazer.

She was the first Black person and the first woman to serve as California's attorney general, and then was the first US senator of South Asian descent.

She is now the first woman and first Black vice president.

During her career as a prosecutor, Harris had a reputation for being tough - a trait she could use to advantage in a campaign expected to focus on crime and immigration.

Some progressive Democrats have been critical of her strict punishment of minor offenders, saying it disproportionately affected minorities.

Harris also suffers from a dismal approval rating, which could prompt Democrats to find another solution.

There is no rule that a running mate automatically replaces the presidential candidate in the case of a withdrawal. This is why California Governor Gavin Newsom's name keeps popping up.

The 56-year-old Democrat, a former mayor of San Francisco, has been at the helm of the Golden State - the most populous in the United States - for five years, and has made it a haven for abortion access.

So far, he has steadfastly supported Biden and dismissed talk of replacing him, saying in the wake of Biden's dreadful debate performance last week against Donald Trump that such "conversations" are "unhelpful to our democracy."

But Newsom has also made little secret of his own presidential ambitions.

In recent months, he has increased his international travel, run multiple ads touting his record, and invested millions of dollars in a political action committee, fueling speculation that he will run in 2028. So why not 2024?

Another possible Democratic candidate is Gretchen Whitmer, the 52-year-old governor of Michigan.

Her state has both a strong working class population and major Black and Arab-American communities - all key groups of voters that Biden has struggled to court.

Whitmer, a fierce critic of Trump, is perhaps best known for being the intended target of a kidnapping plot devised by a far-right militia group.

Michigan will be one of the crucial battleground states in the November 5 presidential election - a strong argument, according to her supporters, for naming Whitmer as a candidate.

Whitmer herself has dismissed speculation about any candidacy, saying Monday that she was "proud to support Joe Biden as our nominee."

"I am behind him 100 percent in the fight to defeat Donald Trump," she said.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro leads the biggest swing state in November's 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, previously was elected twice as the state's attorney general.

He condemned 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 speechmaker and an avowed centrist - qualities that could propel him to seek national office.

Other names circulating include Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, but their chances so far seem limited at best.

Senator Amy Klobuchar and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who both ran against Biden in the 2020 primaries, have also been mentioned.

 -AFP