Credit: (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Sunday he would not seek reelection to the White House, saying it was in “the best interest” of the nation and the Democratic Party for him to withdraw from the presidential race.
In a letter addressed to the public and posted online, Biden, 81, touted the work his administration has completed with Congress, including steps to lower prescription drug costs, providing healthcare to military veterans exposed to toxic substances, passing gun safety legislation and shepherding the “most significant climate legislation in the history of the world” into existence.
“I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people,” Biden said, adding that he would address the nation this week about his choice.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
“It’s been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said. “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 endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, to be the nominee.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden wrote in a separate statement.
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
Biden’s decision immediately upends the national political conversation and catapults Harris, the first female vice president in the country’s 248-year history and his potential successor, into national and global prominence.
It also scrambles the political strategies of both Democrats and Republicans, who, until Biden delivered a feeble and often garbled debate performance in late June, had both banked on Biden as the Democratic candidate, planning their campaign strategies around the 81-year-old.
In his reelection campaign, Biden cruised to primary wins in state after state, batting aside a minor challenge from Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, and accumulating the support of nearly every Democratic Party delegate.
After Biden releases those delegates, they will be empowered to vote for whomever they want at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, running from Aug. 19 to 22, in what is called an “open convention.”
Democrats react
“Joe Biden has not only been a great president and a great legislative leader but he is a truly amazing human being,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first.”
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) called Biden’s decision a mark of the president’s “selflessness as a leader.”
“I am grateful for his calm leadership while navigating the most challenging role on the planet, especially after four years of tumult and division sowed by Donald Trump,” Pallone said in a statement. “Now, our party must come together to defeat the authoritarian policies of the Republican nominee and ensure American democracy endures.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) thanked Biden for his work.
“History will remember President Biden as a towering figure,” she said, adding that his decision not to run is a “stunning act of selflessness that is so often lacking in today’s politics.”
Rep. Andy Kim (D-3rd) recalled a moment a decade ago when Biden, then vice president, talked with him outside the Oval Office in the White House.
“’Andy, remember it’s not that all politics is local, it’s that all politics is personal,’” Kim said Biden told him. “In his lifetime of service, President Biden has given our country everything he had.”
Before rumors began swirling in Washington that Biden could drop out as soon as this weekend, cracks had appeared in the Democrats’ foundation of support for the sitting president, who Democrats view as one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history but worry he had become a liability on the campaign trail, threatening their chances to hold the Senate and win back the House.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th), the only New Jersey lawmaker to explicitly call for Biden to withdraw, delivered one of those cracks on July 9, when she urged him not to run again.
In an AP-NORC poll conducted July 11 through 15 of 1,253 adults nationwide, 70 percent of respondents and 65% of Democrats said Biden should end his candidacy.
Thank you, Mr. President, for over 50 years of service to our grateful nation.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 21, 2024
Your time in office will be remembered as one of the most successful and impactful presidencies in American history. https://t.co/jL6u96gbWh
Among Democrats, 75% of people between 18 and 44 said they want Biden to end his campaign, versus 57% of Democrats 45 or older.
Biden had also trailed Democratic Senate candidates in states that would have been vital to his reelection path, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
The president had planned to return to the campaign trail this week after testing positive for COVID-19 last week during a campaign stop in Nevada.
Biden is the first sitting Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson, who declined a second White House run in 1968, to not seek reelection.
Harris’ resume
A former San Francisco district attorney turned California attorney general, Harris won the election in 2016 to fill the seat of Barbara Boxer, a former U.S. senator and fellow Democrat.
Harris ran for the presidency in the 2020 election, clashing with Biden over his track record on school integration before she dropped out in December 2019, short on campaign cash.
She joined the Biden campaign as his running mate in August 2020.
Born in Oakland, Calif., to an Indian biologist mother and an economics researcher from Jamaica, Harris will further shift political perceptions if delegates in Chicago nominate her.
“Should she win the nomination, the nation will watch a multiracial woman complete in a presidential general election for the first time in history,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
“Our research and programming have long been oriented towards changing the perception of power,” Walsh said. “This transformative moment will forever alter how Americans view leadership in politics.”
