Off The Record

President Joe Biden Drops Out Of 2024 Presidential Race

Published on July 21, 2024

Six months before Election Day, President Joe Biden abruptly and humbledly declared on Sunday that he would not be running for president again. This decision has left the race for the White House in disarray.

The 81-year-old Biden was unable to stop the increasing belief in his party that he was too weak to lead and would fall short against Donald Trump in November. He supported Kamala Harris, the vice president, to be the Democratic nominee in his place.

Get real-time updates about Biden’s exit from the presidential race.

“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 in a letter posted on X. “I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”

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

In a subsequent post, Biden praised Harris and thanked her for “being an extraordinary partner.”

“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” Biden posted. “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.”

A person with knowledge of the campaign claims that Biden and Harris had a conversation today prior to the president’s declaration.

Richard Nixon’s downfall and Trump’s ascent bookend a unique national political career that ends with his retirement. He launched four campaigns for president. He represented the small state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years. He advanced to become the chairman of the influential Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. Additionally, he was Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years.

Soon after, politicians started to respond.

Biden “has been an extraordinary, history-making president—a leader who has fought hard for working people and delivered astonishing results for all Americans,” according to a post made on X by California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“He will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents,” said Newsom, who was one of the most prominent Biden surrogates. Newsom has also been floated as a possible Democratic presidential contender.

In a post on X, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, another well-known Democrat who is being considered as a potential national contender, referred to Biden as a “great public servant.”

Whitmer stated, “My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan.”

The president’s granddaughter, Naomi Biden, said in a post that she was “nothing but proud today of my Pop,” adding that he has “served our country with every bit of his soul and with unmatched distinction.” First lady Jill Biden posted her husband’s statement to X with a heart emoji.

Days after the conclusion of a Republican National Convention where speaker after speaker criticized the Biden-Harris ticket, Republicans on the other side of the aisle criticized the decision and many called on him to resign his position.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was one of the Republicans calling on Biden to resign, writing in a post, “If you can’t run a mere political campaign, you can’t be President.”

In a fundraising email, Trump’s campaign said that Biden “quit the race in complete disgrace.”

Over the phone, Trump responded to Biden’s decision in a brief interview with NBC News, referring to the president as “the worst president in the history of the United States by far.”

In response to a question about whether Biden’s choice surprised him, Trump stated that Biden “should never have been there in the first place.”

Trump remarked, “He should have stayed in his basement.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden)

An extraordinary choice

In the contemporary political age, Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race less than a month before his party’s convention and a few months before voters head to the polls is unusual. After his extension of the Vietnam War in the 1960s split the Democratic Party, Lyndon Johnson became the last sitting president to withdraw from a reelection run. However, Johnson made his declaration eight months before to that election, in March 1968.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential studies professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “No president has dropped out or died this close to the convention.”

As aspirational politicians vie for Biden’s seat on the Democratic ticket, Biden’s removal from the top spot is expected to cause tremors inside the party. Harris and well-known governors, such as California’s Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, have already become the subject of factions.

Harris appears to be the obvious successor. Being the first female vice president, she broke through a barrier. Being a woman of color, she has a lot of support among African Americans, who are devoted members of the Democratic Party. Overall, though, an NBC News poll conducted earlier this month found that Harris’ favorable rating was just 32%.

“There’s no one you can name right now who is an obvious substitute,” Perry stated. “That’s the reason this is so erratic and disorganized.”

The procedures involved in changing the name on ballots also raise a plethora of legal concerns. Republicans may attempt to obstruct the nominee’s route by launching legal actions meant to prevent that individual from being included on the ballot.

Throughout his administration, doubts about Biden’s abilities followed him, but they reached a breaking point after his June 27 debate with Trump. His lackluster performance, along with his declining polling ratings, caused his own party members to become alarmed that he wouldn’t be able to win in November.

Speaking in a hoarse voice in front of 51 million viewers, Biden frequently fell short of finishing sentences or providing a convincing argument for why voters should choose him over Trump. He then blamed a cold and tiredness for his subpar performance. He begged the nation to remember his achievements while in government and not let one bad night get in the way.

Democrats, unmoved, started to demand that he resign; the uprising rose gradually in strength and number over time. Before Biden made his decision on Sunday afternoon, 37 congressional Democrats, including independent senator Joe Manchin (a former member of the Democratic Party), had urged him to withdraw from the 2024 race.

They played on Biden’s sense of patriotism, saying he should put his nation first and resign if he truly thought Trump posed a threat to democracy.

Biden retaliated. To no avail, he made several calls and met with Democratic officials at all levels in an attempt to garner support within the party.

He used press conferences and interviews to reassure voters that he was still capable of quick thinking in an attempt to allay worries about his acuity. However, he continued to make mistakes, and his poll numbers did not change.

Biden was forced to leave the campaign trail on July 17 after testing positive for COVID-19, which was another unfortunate turn of events.

Biden’s condition presented an unwelcome contrast for Democrats. Five days after escaping an attempted assassination, on July 18, Trump gave a victorious speech in Milwaukee, receiving the Republican nomination, while Biden was alone in his home state.

The 2024 presidential contest will be the most tumultuous in living memory as a result of the shocking circumstances that have culminated in Biden’s exit. Even though he alternated between the campaign trail and several courts as a defendant in both criminal and civil proceedings, Trump won the Republican presidential nomination with ease. A Manhattan jury found him guilty in May on 34 criminal counts pertaining to payments of hush money to a p*** star.

Then, Trump quickly made a comeback. A highly anticipated decision by the Supreme Court on July 1st barred President Trump from acting in official capacities during his presidency, obstructing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s attempts to bring charges against Trump for meddling in the 2020 election.

At a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Trump came dangerously close to passing away. A man who was 130 yards away and lying on a roof fired the bullet that struck his ear. Trump sank to the ground to protect himself. Then, his face covered in blood, he sprang up and bellowed, “Fight!” with a defiant fist pump.

Two days later, at the start of the Republican convention in Milwaukee that officially recognized Trump’s candidacy, there was still another fortunate event. When Trump left the White House in 2021, Smith filed a separate lawsuit alleging that he had improperly kept sensitive information with him, but federal judge Aileen Cannon in Florida dismissed it. Cannon, a Trump appointee, declared Smith’s appointment to be unlawful. Smith challenged her decision right away.

Trump gained momentum from the recent spate of positive news, which enabled Republicans to show a united and energetic front at this month’s convention.

Biden rarely inspires that kind of fervor. His main campaign consisted primarily of a coronation. Party leaders swept the field, believing that Biden, who had already defeated Trump, was best suited to do so again. As a result, he faced token opposition. However, poll after poll indicated that voters had misgivings about him and thought he was too elderly and sick to run for office again.

According to an AP-NORC poll conducted on July 17, a staggering 65% of Democrats thought Biden ought to withdraw from the race.

Biden gave in after pressure from his supporters and rejection from party officials.