President Joe Biden announced Sunday in a letter to the nation posted to social media that he would no longer seek reelection and is ending his 2024 presidential campaign.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” President Biden stated in the letter. “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.”
President Biden said he would address the nation in person later with more details about his decision.
“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected,” President Biden wrote.
It was not immediately clear who might replace President Biden as a leading candidate or as the party’s nominee, but shortly after President Biden’s announcement, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the potential candidate.
The 2024 Democratic National Convention, where a nominee is traditionally formalized, is scheduled for Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.
Calls to step down
The decision comes after weeks of intense speculation following his lackluster June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump.
Political commentators and former advisers to President Biden characterized a widespread “panic” among Democrats following the debate.
In the days that followed, numerous elected Democrats called for President Biden to step aside.
On July 2, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to publicly encourage President Biden to withdraw from the race.
“Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” Doggett said.
In another blow, actor George Clooney, a major fundraiser for President Biden’s campaign, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times that called for the president to exit the 2024 race.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote.
The campaign pushes back
The White House, President Biden’s campaign and the president himself all fiercely maintained that he would remain in the race.
Immediately following the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris defended President Biden’s performance, calling focus not to his stumbles and pauses but to his contrast to Trump.
“People can debate on style points, but ultimately this election and who is the President of the United States has to be about substance. And the contrast is clear,” Harris said on CNN. “Look at what happened over the course of the debate. Donald Trump lied over and over and over again. He would not disavow what happened on Jan. 6. He would not give a clear answer on whether he would stand by the election results this November.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on July 3: “The president is clear-eyed and he is staying in the race. He gets it. We get it. And so what we’re going to do is continue to look forward, continue to work on behalf of the American people.”
“I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win because when Democrats unite, we will always win,” President Biden told staff during a campaign call the same day, according to a source familiar with his remarks. “Just as we beat Donald Trump in 2020, we’re going to beat him again in 2024.”
President Biden met with a group of Democratic governors on July 3. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, all Biden allies, spoke to reporters following the meeting. They said Democratic governors and the Democratic Party were in full support of President Biden.
“I’m here to tell you today, President Joe Biden is in it to win it,” said Hochul. “And all of us said we pledged our support to him because the stakes could not be higher on the eve of the Fourth of July celebration.”
But headlines persisted that President Biden was mindful of the balance he was attempting to strike. On July 3, The New York Times reported conversations with insiders close to the president who said he knew that the days following the debate could decide his viability as the Democratic candidate. Campaign stops and taped interviews would give the public prolonged looks at how he was holding up.
Not quite unprecedented
For all the headlines and history-making context, President Biden is still not the first incumbent president to step out of the race. Amid the racial and social turmoil of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek reelection.
“I have concluded that I should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year,” Johnson said at the time. “Accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
