President Joe Biden has decided to halt his re-election campaign and no longer seek a second term in office.
Biden announced the news via his official social media on Sunday, and noted he will speak to the nation later.
The extraordinary decision marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has declined his party’s nomination for a second term since Lyndon B. Johnson opted out of running in 1968. No presidential nominee has ever dropped out during the general election campaign.
The move follows three weeks of Democratic party chaos, anxiety and finger-pointing over Biden’s catastrophic debate performance on June 27 against his Republican candidate Donald Trump. During the 90-minute debacle, the president appeared fragile and struggled to make coherent arguments. Calls for Biden to drop out began immediately, with several CNN panelists quickly suggesting the president should consider ending his campaign. The calls steadily escalated to include numerous elected officials and pundits urging the president to step aside. Donors vowed to no longer give money to the Biden campaign, with some refusing to give money to any Democrats until the president stepped aside.
Biden and his most strident defenders pushed back, repeatedly insisting the president simply had “a bad night,” was sick with a cold and was jet-lagged and maintained that he was still the best Democrat to face Trump in November.
Yet a flurry of reports suggested Biden’s debate behavior was not a one-off and that the president has had many episodes in recent years where he’s struggled both behind the scenes and while meeting other officials — also that such struggles have increased in frequency and severity during the last six months. Biden’s inner circle and his political and media supporters have been accused covering up the extent of the president’s decline by regularly insisting Biden was “sharp as a tack” despite mounting private and public evidence to the contrary.
The impact of Biden’s debate performance showed in the polls. While post-debate surveys demonstrated only a modest increase for Trump on a national level, at least one leaked poll suggested the debate had a dire impact on swing state races critical to electoral victory.
In recent days, the the calls to step aside have reportedly come from the highest levels of Congress, with both former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer having spoken to Biden privately urging him to step down.
The failed assassination attempt on Trump last weekend briefly suspended the pressure on Biden. The shooting, with its viral photo of Trump defiantly raising his fist on stage, caused some to speculate that the Republican nominee was now unbeatable and that Democrats should just ride out the election with Biden rather than risk one of the party’s rising stars on a quixotic effort. Others suggested the opposite: If the assassination attempt strengthens Trump, it’s all the more reason to put a candidate on the ticket with a better chance of winning.
Yet Biden remained defiant until nearly the end, rather angrily declaring to MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week: “The bottom line here is, we’re not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president — challenge me at the convention.” Biden even suggested to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that if he lost in November, what mattered is he gave the campaign his best effort (“If Trump wins in November, I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and did the job I know I could do, that’s what it’s all about”). So while the most probable spin from Biden’s announcement is that the president “put the country first” and stepped down “for the good of the country,” his actions over the last few weeks will likely forever undermine that heroic platitude. Given that the media, donors, and Congress had to make an unprecedented and ever-increasing effort to forcefully push for Biden to exit — amid collapsing poll numbers — it’s perhaps more accurate to say that while Biden did choose to step down, he also held out to a point where he no longer had a choice.
The big question now becomes: Who will be the Democratic nominee instead of Biden? And by what process, exactly?
Some have suggested Vice President Kamala Harris should be the uncontested new standard bearer. Harris has the benefit of being already on the current ticket as VP and she will also have ready access to $240 million in Biden-Harris donor funds.
With Harris’ poll numbers trailing Biden’s up until the debate, however, others say nobody should automatically get the top spot, and that the best way to insure Trump’s defeat is to hold a “mini primary” that allows other potential contenders — such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and California governor Gavin Newsom — to make their case along with Harris.
Under such a scenario, each prospective candidate could present their leadership vision for how best to move the country forward, amid rounds of voter polling and debates, to get a sense of which candidate might fare best in November. The campaigning would lead up to the Democratic Convention in Chicago set for Aug. 19-22, when delegates who were previously pledged to Biden would be freed up to make another choice instead.
