President Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee, a surprising decision after weeks of pressure for the 81-year-old to drop out of the contest against former President Donald Trump.
“It is the greatest honor of my life to be your President,” Biden wrote in a post on the X social media site.
“And while it has been my goal to be re-elected, I believe it is in the best interest of the party and the country for me to step down and focus solely on doing my job as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said. write.
“I will speak to the Nation this week in more detail about my decision,” wrote Biden, whose move comes after more than three weeks of pressure from fellow Democrats to withdraw from the contest after last June’s debate against Trump. .
Biden in a subsequent tweet wrote that “my first decision as the party’s nominee in 2020 is to choose Kamala Harris to be my Vice President.”
“And it was the best decision I ever made. Today I want to give my full support and endorsement to Kamala as our party’s candidate this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and defeat Trump,” Biden wrote.
“Let’s work on this.”
Biden, who has been isolating at his Rehoboth, Delaware, beach house after being diagnosed with Covid-19, and Harris spoke on Sunday before announcing they would drop out of the election race.
His decision echoed the decision of another Democratic incumbent, President Lyndon Johnson, to drop out of the 1968 election as he faced the chaos of the Vietnam War, low approval ratings, and a surprising performance by Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary.
Biden’s announcement comes as more Democrats are calling on him to “pass the torch” and allow a new candidate to take on Republican Trump, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt July 20 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
US President Joe Biden attends a NATO event to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the alliance, in Washington, US, July 9, 2024.
Yves Hermann Reuters
Biden’s campaign has for weeks insisted he will stay in the race, despite growing concerns since his disastrous debate with Trump in late June that he is too old and frail to compete with the former president, and will seek a second term if re-elected.
The president’s decision to open the presidential race less than four months before Election Day. It also creates tremendous questions and challenges for the Democratic Party, which must now scramble to assemble a new presidential ticket.
The next candidate will have to compete with the Republican ticket of Trump and Sen. JD Vance, won over donors, delegates and other loyal allies to the incumbent – all while convincing voters that he deserved the highest office in the land.
But many top Democrats have made it clear in recent weeks that they prefer the daunting task of keeping Biden as the nominee.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNBC has reached out to a Trump campaign spokeswoman for comment.
Biden began rallying support from his own party and allies after his disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June.
While only three years older than Trump, Biden looks and sounds worse on the debate stage. He exhibits a stiff posture and sometimes looks blank, and he often gives hoarse, vague and ineffective answers.
In substance and appearance, Biden is very different from Trump, who looks and sounds the same as in recent years.
The debate immediately sparked a crisis among Democrats. Even before it was over, party operatives cast doubt on whether Biden could campaign effectively against Trump.
High-profile Democratic donors and supporters have urged Biden to drop out, with some vowing to withhold campaign contributions.
Days after the debate, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to withdraw from the race. Nearly 20 others soon followed, including Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont and Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
Biden and his aides spent weeks treating the bleeding. In his first post-debate interview, Biden said he believed he was the best person to run against Trump, adding that he could only be persuaded to step down “if God Almighty comes out and tells me.”
But as his firm posture failed to quell the unrest in the party, Biden suggested he could backtrack in other ways.
In a BET interview that aired Wednesday during the Republican National Convention, Biden said he might reconsider his decision to stay in the race “if I have a medical condition that comes up.”
On the same day the interview was set to air, Biden tested positive for Covid-19. He canceled a scheduled appearance in Las Vegas and returned to Delaware.
Biden has become the oldest person ever to serve in the White House, and he will be 86 years old at the end of his second term. He has questioned his physical and mental fitness even in 2020.
Those concerns have grown in the 2024 cycle, but have been aggressively dismissed by the Biden campaign and White House aides, and the president’s lack of press conferences and interviews may have shielded scrutiny of his acuity.
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