By Colleen Long, Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden fell out the race 2024 for the White House on Sunday, ending his bid for re-election after a disastrous debate with Donald Trump that raised doubts about his suitability for the office just 4 months before the election.
The decision comes after increasing pressure from Biden’s Democratic allies to resign after the controversy of 27 Juneduring which the 81-year-old president faltered, often gave nonsensical answers and did not many untruths.
Biden plans to complete the rest of his term, which ends at noon on January 20, 2025.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve you as President. And while I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on performing my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted on his X account.
Biden, who continues to live at his beach house in Delaware after his COVID-19 diagnosis last week, said he would address the nation later this week and supply “details” of his decision.
The White House confirmed the authenticity of the letter.
He didn’t immediately support Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s immediate favorite for the nomination at its meeting in August in Chicago.
The announcement is the most recent shock to a White House race that each parties consider probably the most consequential election in generations, just days after attempted murder by Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Never before has a celebration's likely presidential candidate dropped out of the race so near the election. The closest parallel can be President Lyndon Johnson, who, shaken by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he wouldn’t run for one more term.
Now Democrats must urgently attempt to bring coherence to the nomination process in a matter of weeks and persuade voters in an astonishingly short time that their candidate can get the job done and beat Trump. And Trump, for his part, must turn his focus to a brand new opponent after years of focusing his attention on Biden.
The decision marks a fast and surprising end to Biden's 52-year tenure in electoral politics. Donors, legislators and even helpers expressed their doubts about whether he could persuade voters that he could do the job for one more 4 years.
Biden has won the overwhelming majority of delegates And all nomination competitions except onewhich might have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, these delegates are free to decide on one other candidate.
Harris, 59, appeared like a natural successor, especially because she is the one candidate with direct access to the Biden campaign's war chest under federal campaign finance rules.
Biden's decision to not explicitly endorse Harris appears to be laying the groundwork for chaos within the party to proceed until the convention.
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to happen in Chicago from August 19 to 22, however the party had announced that it a virtual appeal to officially nominate Biden before personal negotiations begin.
The date for the roll call has not yet been set, and it's unlikely to occur now that the sphere is suddenly wide open. Harris would likely face competition from others searching for to switch Biden. But that could lead on to a scenario during which she and others find yourself canvassing individual state delegations on the convention for support.
In 2020, Biden presented himself as a transitional figure searching for to be a bridge to a brand new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he had fought for for many years, he was reluctant to provide it up.
Biden was once asked if one other Democrat 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.”
Biden is already the oldest president within the country and has repeatedly stressed that he’s as much as the challenge of one other campaign and one other term in office, telling voters they only must “watch out for me.”
And they watched him. His weak performance in the controversy sparked a wave of concern amongst Democrats and donors, who expressed publicly what some had been saying privately for months: They didn’t consider he was fit for one more 4 years in office.
Concerns about Biden’s age have been haunting him since his announcement that he is running for re-electionalthough Trump is just three years younger at 78. Most Americans consider the president to be too old for a second termin keeping with a survey from August 2023 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs ResearchA majority also doubt his mental capability To be president, although that can be one in all Trump's weaknesses.
Biden often noted that he will not be as young as he once was, cannot walk and talk as easily as he once did, but he has wisdom and many years of experience which are value an amazing deal.
“I give you my word as Biden. I would not run again if I did not believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job,” he told his supporters at a rally in North Carolina the day after the controversy. “Because, quite frankly, there is too much at stake.”
But voters had other problems with him too – he was deeply unpopular as a politician, whilst his administration steered the country through the recovery from a worldwide pandemic, managed a booming economy and passed major bipartisan laws that may impact the country for years to come back. A majority of Americans disapprove of the best way he does his joband he faces persistently low approval rankings on key issues comparable to the economy and immigration.
Biden’s age proved to be a very important think about an investigation by his handling of confidential documentsSpecial Counsel Robert Hur said in February that the president appeared in conversations with investigators as a “likable, well-meaning older man with a bad memory.”
The president's allies considered the statement unfounded and criticized Hur for including it in his report, and Biden himself angrily pushed back to descriptions of how he spoke about his deceased son.
Biden's motivation for running was closely intertwined with Trump. He had retired from public service 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 descended on town to protest the removal of Confederate monuments.
Trump said: “There were some very bad people in the group, but there were also very good people on both sides. On both sides.”
Biden was deeply offended that a sitting president didn’t clearly condemn racism and white supremacy. Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to confess defeat and stood by for hours while his supporters stormed the US Capitol On January 6, 2021, he beat and bloodied cops in a failed try and overturn the certification of Biden's election victory.
“If Trump didn’t run, I’m not sure I would run,” Biden once said during a campaign rally.
Trump's campaign didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Biden's decision to drop out of the race, but he and his team had made it clear that they might somewhat run against Biden.
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