Authors: Jeff Mason, Jarrett Renshaw, and Steve Holland
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid on Sunday under growing pressure from fellow Democrats and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s candidate to face Republican Donald Trump in the November election.
Biden, 81, the oldest person to occupy the Oval Office, said he will remain president until the end of his term on January 20, 2025, and will address the nation this week.
Biden has not been seen in public since testing positive for COVID-19 last week and is quarantining at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
“While I intend to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country that I resign and focus on my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote on the X.
The move significantly reshapes the White House campaign landscape that has been shaken repeatedly over the last month. Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate forced his fellow Democrats to urge him to withdraw. Then on July 13, a gunman attempted to assassinate 78-year-old former President Trump.
In polls, Americans express widespread dissatisfaction with a potential rematch between Biden and Trump. “Harris is going to be easier to defeat than Joe Biden,” Trump told CNN shortly after Biden made the announcement.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said the American people will soon hear from the party about its next steps and progress on the nomination process. This is the first time in more than half a century that a sitting U.S. president has given up his party’s nomination.
If Harris, 59, becomes the nominee, she will become the first black woman in U.S. history to lead a major party race. A former California attorney general and former U.S. senator, she ran unsuccessfully for president against Biden in 2020.
“My intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our country — to defeat Donald Trump.”
Harris’ campaign officials, allies and supporters have begun calling for support from delegates for her nomination ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago from August 19 to 22, multiple sources said.
Democratic state party chairs held a conference call Sunday afternoon to discuss endorsing Harris as the party’s nominee. Several attendees said Harris had the full support of the chairs.
Opposition to Biden’s campaign has grown within the party over the past week, with 36 congressional Democrats – more than one in eight – publicly calling on him to quit over concerns about his mental acuity.
Lawmakers said they feared he would cost them not only the White House but also the chance to control both chambers of Congress next year, which would prevent Democrats from truly holding power in Washington.
It was in stark contrast to what happened in Milwaukee last week, when Republican convention delegates rallied around Trump, who refused to acknowledge his 2020 loss to Biden, sparking a January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol attack.
It’s unclear whether other top Democrats will challenge Harris’ nomination – she is widely considered the choice of many party officials – or whether the party itself will choose to open the field.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had been considered a possible replacement for Biden, expressed his support for Harris.
Newsom wrote on direction.
Two other potential challengers, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, issued statements praising Biden but making no mention of the vice president.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg released statements Sunday supporting Harris’ candidacy. Both are among a handful of Democrats considered potential vice presidential candidates.
last minute shift
As of Saturday evening, Biden told allies he planned to stay in the race, but changed his mind Sunday afternoon, a person familiar with the matter said.
“At around 1:45 this afternoon, the president told his senior team that he had changed his mind,” the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Within minutes, Biden announced his decision on social media.
Polls show that Harris does statistically no better than Biden against Trump.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after Trump’s assassination on July 13, a poll of Harris and Trump conducted on July 15 and 16 showed that Harris and Trump were in a hypothetical In the head-to-head matchup, each received 44% support. In the same poll, Trump leads Biden 43% to 41%, but given the poll’s 3-point margin of error, the 2-point difference doesn’t mean much.
Congressional Republicans said Sunday that Biden should resign immediately, which would hand White House power to Harris and make Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson next in line.
“If he doesn’t have the ability to run for president, how does he have the ability to govern now? I mean, we have five months left in this administration. It’s a real concern and a danger to the country, ” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. Biden’s announcement.
Biden’s campaign had $95 million on hand at the end of June, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday. Campaign finance law experts are divided over how easily this money could be transferred to a campaign led by Harris.
Small donors raised more than $27.5 million on ActBlue in the first five hours of Harris’ presidential campaign, the fundraising platform said on X.
For the first time since Lyndon Johnson
Biden’s historic withdrawal – the first sitting president since President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 to give up his party’s reelection nomination during the Vietnam War – leaves his successor with less than four months to come. Conduct a campaign.
When Biden defeated Trump in 2020, he became the oldest president in U.S. history. Some interpreted that to mean he would serve one term and be the transitional figure to defeat Trump and return his party to power.
But he has set his sights on re-election because he believes he is the only Democrat who can defeat Trump again. His advanced age has become more apparent in recent weeks. His gait became awkward, and a childhood stutter sometimes returned.
Biden’s erratic, hesitant performance in the first debate with Trump on June 27 has led to growing calls for Biden to reconsider his candidacy and left even some of his biggest supporters hesitant. Decide.
Donors began to revolt, and Harris’ supporters began to rally around her. Top Democrats, including longtime ally former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have told Biden he can’t win the election.
Harris is a former prosecutor, and Trump, who is two decades her senior, faces two pending criminal indictments related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The former president will be sentenced in New York in September after being convicted of trying to cover up hush-money payments to pornographic film stars. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims they are all politically motivated in an attempt to prevent him from returning to power.
Earlier this year, Biden handily won the Democratic primary with little opposition to become the presidential nominee, despite concerns among voters about his age and health.
His staunch support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has eroded support among some in his own party, particularly among younger, more liberal Democrats and voters of color.
Many black voters say Biden hasn’t done enough for them, and overall enthusiasm among Democrats for Biden’s re-election is low. Even before the debate with Trump, Biden was trailing Republicans in some national polls and trailing Republicans in key states he needs to win on Nov. 5.
