Biden drops out of presidential race after Democratic revolt following disastrous debate: ‘Best interest of the country’
President Biden made the unprecedented decision Sunday to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, less than four months after being declared the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee and just weeks after a dismal debate showing.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” the 81-year-old embattled commander-in- chief wrote in a remarkable letter that he addressed to “My Fellow Americans.”
“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.
“I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” Biden wrote.
“I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trusty you have placed in me,” Biden said.
About a half-hour later, he followed up the open letter with another missive on X endorsing Harris to replace him at the top of the flailing party’s new ticket.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden wrote. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Five minutes after that, he urged people to donate to her campaign.
The president’s extraordinary announcement on exiting the race as it was nearing the final stretch occurred less than 20 hours after Biden claimed to still be in it, tweeting, “It’s the most important election of our lifetimes.
“And I will win it.”
GOP foe Donald Trump quickly bashed the presidential drop-out, writing on Truth Social, “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!
“All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t,” Trump said.
“And now, look what he’s done to our Country, with millions of people coming across our Border, totally unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists.”
Trump also boasted to CNN that he “believes that VP Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” according to a post on X by the network’s Brian Stelter.
The Donald used the occasion to try to cash in with donors, too, telling them they need to help build on “the momentum … AT THIS VERY MOMENT.’’
Trump’s newly minted vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and other GOPers questioned whether Biden should even be allowed to finish his term, given his move Sunday as damning reports about his mental and physical state swirled for months.
“Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief,” Vance tweeted. “There is no middle ground.”
The president’s campaign exit occurred just weeks after a debate performance against Trump, 78, in which the incumbent appeared infirm and was at times incoherent — sending Democratic donors and strategists into a tizzy.
It also followed an assassination attempt on Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Biden’s withdrawal could set off a free-for-all for the Democratic nomination for president, although Harris has been considered the obvious choice to replace him as the candidate.
The president cannot by decree select his replacement atop the 2024 ticket.
The nearly 4,000 delegates pledged to Biden could have only days to rally around a new candidate as a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden was expected to be finalized by Aug. 7 before in-person proceedings were set to begin at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former first lady Michelle Obama have all been floated as possible replacements for Biden.
Harris, 59, is widely seen as the front-runner because of legal constraints over the transfer of the Biden-Harris campaign’s war chest, but many Democrats doubt her viability in the general election, given her favorability ratings often lag behind even Biden’s.
Biden opted to throw in the towel after a series of embarrassing revelations that senior party leaders had no confidence in his ability to win — amid a mounting mutiny among rank-and-file congressional Democrats fearful that they too would lose if Biden got buried in a landslide.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were among those who warned Biden about bleak polling data — while former President Barack Obama reportedly confided in allies that he had lost confidence in Biden’s path to another term.
But his family — including wife Jill and convicted felon son Hunter — were said to have been pushing him to stay in.
Jill Biden on Sunday shared a heart emoji and reposted her husband’s message announcing that he was not seeking re-election.
Tributes to Biden poured in from Democratic leaders, including at least some who were likely relieved that he finally took himself out of the race.
“Joe Biden is an American hero, a true statesman, and he’ll go down in history as one of the greatest champions of working families our nation has ever known. Thank you, @JoeBiden,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a tweet.
Former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary — who Biden was booted aside for as the party’s presidential nominee in 2016 — joined the chorus publicly praising biden while adding they were endorsing Harris as his replacement.
The president launched his re-election bid in April 2023, asking voters to give him another four years to help him “finish the job.”
Biden, who at the time was already the oldest president in American history, opted to seek a second term despite plunging support, with polls at the time showing that the majority of Americans, including Democrats, did not want him to reprise his role in the Oval Office for another four years.
The president’s 15 months on the campaign trail did not alleviate voter concern about his age and mental acuity. A second term would’ve seen Biden reach the age of 86 before the end of it.
Special counsel Robert Hur noted in his February report on Biden’s handling of classified White House documents that he opted against recommending criminal charges against the president in part because a jury might view the chief executive as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
In an interview with Hur, Biden couldn’t recall the years he served as Obama’s vice president or when his son Beau Biden died, according to the scathing report.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released one day before his doomed debate with Trump showed that 70% felt Biden was too old to be commander-in-chief.
His June 27 showdown with Trump, 78, was the death knell of his campaign.
Biden’s debate performance, which included proclaiming to have “beat Medicare” after looking down at his lectern for 10 seconds after losing his train of thought, led to panic in the Democratic establishment.
The liberal New York Times editorial board called on Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee the day after the debate, calling the president “admirable” but “the shadow of a great public servant.”
“He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible. The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test,” the Gray Lady concluded.
Actor George Clooney, who hosted a $30 million Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden in June, also called on him to relinquish the nomination.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote in a Times op-ed. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Biden maintained a day after his dismal performance that he had what it takes to continue as president.
“Folks, I give you my word as a Biden: I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job, because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high,” Biden told voters in North Carolina — signaling that he has no intention of dropping out of the race.
Before Biden, it appears that no sitting president has ever dropped out of a re-election race after formally declaring their candidacy, actively campaigning and winning the required number of delegates needed for the nomination.
Only a handful of incumbent presidents have opted not to seek a second term in the White House, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Calvin Coolidge, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Buchanan and James K. Polk.
“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” Johnson famously announced in a March 1968 televised address after winning the New Hampshire primary, citing the Vietnam War and domestic turbulence.
Johnson’s exit came shortly after his Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), captured 42% of the vote to Johnson’s 48% in the first presidential primary, and followed the entrance of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) into the race.
Kennedy’s June assassination led to incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey receiving the presidential nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a confab marred by riots.
The 2024 Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19, will also be held in Chicago.
