WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden stopped with the 2024 race Sunday at the White House, ending his re-election bid after a disastrous debate with Donald Trump that raised doubts about his fitness for office just four months before the election.
The decision comes after mounting pressure from Biden’s Democratic allies to step aside after the debate of June 27in which the 81-year-old president digressed, often giving nonsensical answers and failing to name the former president many untruths.
Biden plans to serve out the remainder of his term, which ends at 12:00 p.m. ET on January 20, 2025.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President, and while my intention was to be re-elected, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country to step down and focus solely on fulfilling the duties of my President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted to his X account.
Biden’s decision came as he isolates at his beachside home in Delaware after being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, and talks about his political future with a shrinking circle of confidants and family members. Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide “details” about his decision.
The White House confirmed the authenticity of the letter.
He did not immediately endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s heavy favorite for the nomination. her convention in Chicago in August.
The announcement is the latest shock in a White House campaign seen by both political parties as the most influential election in generations, coming just days after the attempted murder from Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Never before has a party’s presumptive presidential nominee dropped out of the race so close to the election. The closest parallel would be President Lyndon Johnson, who, besieged by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term.
Now Democrats must urgently try to bring coherence to the nomination process in a matter of weeks and convince voters in a stunningly short time that their nominee is up to the job and can beat Trump. And Trump, for his part, must shift his focus to a new opponent after years of focusing on Biden.
The decision marks a swift and stunning end to Biden’s 52 years in electoral politics, as donors, legislators and even aides expressed doubts that he could convince voters he could hold the job for another four years.
Biden has won the vast majority of the delegates And every nomination contest except onewhich would have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, those delegates can support him another candidate.
Harris, 59, seemed like the logical successor, especially since she is the only candidate who can draw directly on the Biden campaign’s war chest, under federal campaign finance rules.
Biden’s decision not to explicitly endorse Harris appears to be laying the groundwork for continued chaos within the party all the way to the convention.
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago, but the festival had announced it would take place on August 19. a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before the in-person session begins.
The roll call date has not yet been set, and it is unlikely to happen given the wide-open field. Harris would likely face competition from others seeking to replace Biden. But that could set up a scenario in which she and others lobby individual state delegates at the convention for their support.
In 2020, Biden presented himself as a transitional figure, seeking to bridge the gap to a new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he had fought for decades, he was reluctant to relinquish it.
Biden was once asked if there were other Democrats who could beat Trump.
“Probably 50 of them,” Biden replied. “No, I’m not the only one who can beat him, but I will beat him.”
Already the nation’s oldest president, Biden has repeatedly insisted he is ready for a new campaign and a new term, telling voters all they had to do was “look at me.”
And lo and behold, they did. His poor debate performance prompted an outpouring of concern from Democrats and donors, who said publicly what some had been saying privately for months: They didn’t think he would last another four years in the job.
Concerns about Biden’s age have dogged him since he announced he was request re-electionalthough Trump, at 78, is only three years younger. Most Americans see the president as too old for a second termaccording to an August 2023 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A majority also doubt about his mental faculties to become president, although that is also a weakness of Trump.
Biden often said that he was no longer as young as he used to be, that he no longer walked as easily or spoke as fluently, but that he had wisdom and decades of experience, which were worth a lot.
“I give you my word as Biden. I would not run for reelection if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job,” he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina the day after the debate. “Because, frankly, the stakes are too high.”
But voters had other problems with him as well: He has been deeply unpopular as a leader, even as his administration led the country through its recovery from a global pandemic, presided over a booming economy and passed major bipartisan legislation that will impact the nation for years to come. A majority of Americans disapprove of the way he does his joband he faces persistently low approval ratings on key issues, including the economy and immigration.
Biden’s age emerged as a major factor during a survey of his handling of secret documentsSpecial counsel Robert Hur said in February that the president came across in interviews with investigators as “a likable, well-meaning, older man with a bad memory.”
Allies of the president dismissed the statement as nonsensical and criticized Hur for including it in his report, and Biden himself angrily pushed back about descriptions of how he spoke about his deceased son.
Biden’s motivation for running was closely tied to Trump’s. He had retired after eight years as vice president under Barack Obama and the death of his son Beau, but decided to run after Trump’s comments following a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when white supremacists invaded the city to protest the removal of Confederate monuments.
Trump said, “You had some very bad people in the group, but you also had people who were very fine people on both sides. On both sides.”
That a sitting president would not unequivocally condemn racism and white supremacy deeply offended Biden. Then, Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to give in and watched for hours as his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, beating and bloodying police in a failed attempt to overturn the certification of Biden’s victory.
“If Trump didn’t run, I’m not sure I would,” Biden once said at a campaign rally.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race, but he and his team had made it clear they preferred a confrontation with Biden.
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