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 stunning decision that came after weeks of pressure for the 81-year-old to quit the contest against former President Donald Trump.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote in a post on the social media site X.
“And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
U.S. President Joe Biden attends a NATO event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the alliance, in Washington, U.S., July 9, 2024.
Yves Herman | Reuters
“I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” wrote Biden, whose move comes after more than three weeks of growing pressure from his fellow Democrats to step aside in the contest after a disastrous late June debate against Trump.
Biden in a subsequent tweet wrote that his “very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President.”
“And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” Biden wrote.
“Let’s do this.”
Biden’s announcement came as even more Democrats asked him to “pass the torch” and allow a new nominee to run against the Republican Trump, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt July 20 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Biden’s campaign for weeks had insisted would remain in the race, despite growing concern since his disastrous debate with Trump in late June that he was too old and frail to compete against the former president, and serve a full second term if re-elected.
The president’s decision blows open the presidential race less than four months before Election Day. It also poses extraordinary questions and challenges for the Democratic party, which now must scramble to assemble a new presidential ticket.
The next candidate will need to compete against the Republican ticket of Trump and Sen. JD Vance, win over donors, delegates and other allies who were loyal to the incumbent — all while convincing voters of their own worthiness for the nation’s highest office.
But a growing number of top Democrats have made clear in recent weeks that they prefer that daunting task to keeping Biden as their nominee.
Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNBC has requested comment from a Trump campaign spokesman.
Biden started to hemorrhage support from his own party and allies after his catastrophic debate performance against Trump in late June.
While he is only three years older than Trump, Biden looked and sounded significantly worse on the debate stage. He displayed a stiff posture and sometimes vacant-looking gaze, and he frequently gave answers that were raspy, unclear and ineffective..
In both substance and appearance, Biden contrasted sharply with Trump, who looked and sounded the same as he has in recent years.
The debate instantly set off a crisis among Democrats. Even before it ended, party operatives were raising doubts about whether Biden could effectively campaign against Trump.
High-profile Democratic donors and backers openly urged Biden to drop out, with some vowing to withhold campaign contributions in the meantime.
Days after the debate, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first sitting Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to withdraw from the race. Nearly 20 others soon followed suit, including Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont and Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
Biden and his aides spent weeks trying to stanch the bleeding. In his first post-debate interview, Biden said he was convinced that he is the best person to take on Trump, adding that he could only be persuaded to step down “if the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me that.”
But as his resolute posture failed to quell the unrest in his party, Biden suggested he could be moved to withdraw 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 had some medical condition that emerged.”
On the same day that interview was set for broadcast, Biden tested positive for Covid-19. He canceled a scheduled appearance in Las Vegas and returned home to Delaware.
Biden is already the oldest person ever to serve in the White House, and he would have been 86 at the end of a second term. He had weathered questions about his physical and mental fitness even during his 2020 run.
Those concerns grew in the 2024 cycle, but they were aggressively batted down by Biden’s campaign and White House aides, and the president’s relative lack of press conferences and interviews may have shielded scrutiny about his acuity.
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