WASHINGTON DC: US President Joe Biden on Sunday dropped his faltering bid for re-election amid growing opposition within his own Democratic Party, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party's nominee against Republican Donald Trump. did
Biden, 81, said in a post on X that he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025, and will address the nation this week.
It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and my country to step down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term. .
His initial statement did not include support for Harris, but he followed up a few minutes later by voicing his support.
Biden's campaign has been reeling since a disastrous June 27 debate against Trump, the 78-year-old former president, in which the incumbent at times struggled to finish his thoughts.
Opposition from within Biden's party intensified last week, with 36 congressional Democrats — more than one in eight members of Biden's caucus — publicly calling for him to end his campaign.
Lawmakers said they feared he would cost not only the White House but also the chance to control either chamber of Congress in the Nov. 5 election, leaving Democrats without a meaningful sense of power.
That was in stark contrast to what happened in the GOP last week, when members rallied around Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, 39.
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Harris, 59, will be the first black woman to top a major party ticket in national history.
Trump told CNN on Sunday that he believed Harris would be easier to beat.
A source familiar with the matter said Biden changed his mind at the last minute. The president told allies he planned to stay in the race as of Saturday night and change his mind Sunday afternoon.
“Last night the message continued with everything, it went full speed ahead,” the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Around 1:45pm today: The president told his senior team that he had changed his mind.
Within minutes, Biden announced his decision on social media.
It's unclear whether other top Democrats will challenge Harris for the party's nomination — he was widely seen as the choice of many party officials — or whether the party itself wants to open the field for the nomination.
Republicans in Congress argued that Biden should resign immediately, which would hand the White House to Harris and make House Speaker Mike Johnson next in line.
“If he is not able to run for president, how can he rule now? This means that there are five months left of this government. This is a real concern and a danger to the country.
I gave it my all
Biden's announcement followed a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to withdraw from the race after his shockingly poor debate performance.
His troubles took the public's attention away from Trump's performance, where he made a string of false statements, and instead educated it on questions about Biden's fitness for another four-year term.
A few days later, he raised new concerns in an interview, adding to Democrats' concerns and the gap in the polls, saying that losing to Trump would be fine if he knew he was doing his best.
His blunders at the NATO summit — referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin when he meant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and calling Harris “Trump's vice president” — fueled further concern.
Just four days before Sunday's announcement, Biden was diagnosed with Covid-19, forcing him to cut short his campaign trip to Las Vegas. More than one in 10 congressional Democrats have publicly called on him to drop out.
The historic move by Biden — the first sitting president to drop his party's re-election bid since President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War in March 1968 — leaves his replacement with less than four months to launch a campaign.
If Harris is nominated, it would represent an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party: the party's first black and Asian-American woman for the White House in a country that has elected a black president and never a president. He has not elected a female president more than twice. centuries
By defeating Trump in 2020, Biden became the oldest US president ever elected. During the campaign, Biden described himself as a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Some interpreted this to mean he would serve one term, a transitional figure who defeated Trump and returned his party to power.
But he opted for a runoff, believing he was the only Democrat who could defeat Trump again amid questions about Harris' experience and popularity. However, in recent times, his advanced age became more apparent. His gait became sluggish and his childhood stuttering occasionally returned.
His team hoped a strong performance in the June 27 debate would ease concerns about his age. It did the opposite: A Reuters/Ipsos poll after the debate found that about 40 percent of Democrats thought he should drop out.
Donors began to revolt and Harris supporters began to rally around him. Senior Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime ally, told Biden he could not win the election.
Biden initially resisted pressure to step down. He made damage control calls and meetings with state legislators and governors and gave rare television interviews. But it was not enough. Polls showed Trump's lead growing in key battleground states, and Democrats feared annihilation in the House and Senate. On July 17, Rep. Adam Schiff of California asked her to drop out of the race.
Biden's departure sets up a new conflict between the presumptive Democratic nominee, Harris, a former prosecutor, and Trump, who is two decades his senior and faces two high-profile criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He is due to be sentenced in New York in September for trying to cover up payments to a porn star.
Biden campaigned before the debate
Earlier this year, with little opposition, Biden easily won the Democratic primary race to choose his presidential nominee, despite voters' concerns about his age and health.
His staunch support for Israel's military campaign in Gaza has eroded support from some in his own party, particularly young, progressive Democrats and people of color, who make up a significant portion of the Democratic base.
Many black voters say Biden has not done enough for them, and overall enthusiasm among Democrats for a second Biden term has been low. Even before the debate with Trump, Biden was trailing Republicans in some national polls and in the battleground states he needed to win on Nov. 5.
Harris has been tasked with reaching out to those voters in recent months.
During the primaries, Biden collected more than 3,600 delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. That was nearly double the 1,976 needed to win the party's nomination.
Unless the Democratic Party changes the rules, delegates pledged to Biden will enter the convention “unpledged,” leaving them to vote for his successor.
Democrats also have a system of “superdelegates,” noncommittal senior party officials and elected leaders whose support is limited on the first ballot but can be decisive in later rounds.
Biden beat Trump in 2020 by winning key battleground states, including tight races in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Nationally, he led Trump by more than 7 million votes, taking 51.3 percent of the popular vote to Trump's 46.8 percent.
