WASHINGTON DC: US President Joe Biden dropped his faltering re-election bid on Sunday amid intensifying opposition within his own Democratic Party, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party's nominee against Republican Donald Trump.
Biden, 81, in a post on X, said 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 the country that I step down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term, Biden wrote.
His initial statement had not included an endorsement of Harris, but he followed up minutes later with an expression of support.
Biden's campaign had been on the ropes since a disastrous June 27 debate against former President Trump, 78, in which the incumbent struggled at times to finish his thoughts.
Opposition from within Biden's party gained steam in the past week with 36 congressional Democrats – more than one in eight members of the caucus – publicly calling on him to end his campaign.
Lawmakers said they feared he could cost them not only the White House but the chance to control either chamber of Congress in the Nov. 5 election, leaving Democrats with no meaningful grip on power.
That was in stark contrast to what unfolded in the Republican Party last week, when members rallied around Trump and his Vice President JD Vance, 39.
This section contains relevant reference points, located in (Opinion Field)
Harris, 59, would become the first black woman to run at the top of a major party ticket in the country's history.
Trump told CNN on Sunday that he thought Harris would be easier to defeat.
Biden had a last-minute reshuffle, a source familiar with the matter said. The president told allies that as of Saturday night he planned to stay in the race before changing his mind on Sunday afternoon.
“Last night the message was go ahead with everything, full steam ahead,” the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “At 1:45pm today: the president told his senior team that he had changed his mind.”
Biden announced his decision on social media within minutes.
It was unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party's nomination — she was widely seen as the choice for many party officials — or if the party itself would choose to open the field to nominations.
Congressional Republicans argued that Biden should step down from office immediately, which would hand the White House to Harris and put House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, next in line.
“If he's incapable of running for president, how is he capable of governing right now? I mean, there's five months left in this administration. That's a real concern, and it's a danger to the country,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday before Biden's announcement.
GAVE EVERYTHING
Biden's announcement follows a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to drop out of the race after his shockingly poor debate performance.
His problems took the public spotlight away from Trump's performance, where he made a series of false statements, and trained it instead on questions surrounding Biden's fitness for another 4-year term.
Days later, he raised new concerns in an interview, shrugging off Democratic concerns and a widening gap in opinion polls and saying he would be fine with losing to Trump if he knew he had “given it his all.”
His misbehavior at a NATO summit — invoking Russian President Vladimir Putin's name when he meant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and calling Harris “Vice President Trump” — raised further concerns.
Just four days before Sunday's announcement, Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19, forcing him to cancel a campaign trip to Las Vegas. More than one in ten congressional Democrats had publicly called on him to drop out of the race.
Biden's historic move — the first sitting president to give up his party's nomination for re-election since Vietnam War-era President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 — gives his replacement less than four months to campaign.
If Harris emerges as the nominee, the move would represent an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party: its first black and Asian American woman to run for the White House in a country that has elected a black president and never a female president in more than two centuries.
Biden was the oldest US president ever elected when he beat Trump in 2020. During that campaign, Biden described himself as a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Some interpreted it as him serving a term, a transitional figure who beat Trump and brought his party back to power.
But he set his sights on a second term, believing he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump again amid questions about Harris' experience and popularity. But of late, his advanced age began to show more. His gait became stilted and his childhood stammer returned from time to time.
His team had hoped a strong performance at 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 of the race.
Donors began to revolt and supporters of Harris began to rally around her. Top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime ally, told Biden he cannot win the election.
Biden initially resisted pressure to step aside. He held damage control calls and meetings with lawmakers and state governors and sat for rare television interviews. But it wasn't enough. Polls showed Trump's lead in key battleground states widening, and Democrats began to fear a wipeout in the House and Senate. On July 17, California Representative Adam Schiff called on him to drop out of the race.
Biden's departure creates a stark new contrast between the Democrats' presumptive new nominee, Harris, a former prosecutor, and Trump, who is two decades her senior and faces two outstanding charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. He will be sentenced in New York in September for a conviction for trying to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star.
BIDEN fought BEFORE 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 strong support for Israel's military campaign in Gaza eroded support among some in his own party, particularly young, progressive Democrats and voters of color, who make up a substantial part of the Democratic base.
Many black voters say Biden has not done enough for them, and enthusiasm among Democrats overall for a second Biden term had been low. Even before the debate with Trump, Biden was trailing the Republican in some national polls and in the battleground states he would have needed to win to win on November 5.
Harris was tasked with reaching out to those voters in recent months.
In the primary race, Biden garnered more than 3,600 delegates to 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 who pledged to Biden would enter the convention “uncommitted,” allowing them to vote on his successor.
Democrats also have a system of “superdelegates,” unencumbered senior party officials and elected leaders whose support is limited on the first ballot but can play a decisive role in subsequent rounds.
Biden beat Trump in 2020 by winning in key battleground states, including close races in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Nationally, he outspent Trump by more than 7 million votes, taking 51.3 percent of the popular vote to Trump's 46.8 percent.
