US President Joe Biden abandoned his floundering re-election bid on Sunday under growing pressure from his fellow Democrats and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party’s candidate to face Republican Donald Trump in the November election.
Biden who at 81 is the oldest person ever to have occupied the Oval Office said he will remain in his role as president until his term ends on Jan 20 next year and will address the nation this week.
He has not been seen in public since testing positive for COVID-19 last week and is isolating at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
“While it has been my intention to seek re-election, 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 on X.
The move dramatically re-shapes a White House contest that has been shaken repeatedly in the last month, including by Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate performance which drove his fellow Democrats to urge him to drop out – the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Trump, 78, and Trump’s naming last week of hardline Republican US Senator J.D. Vance, 39, to serve as his vice-presidential running mate.
In opinion polls, Americans had expressed widespread dissatisfaction over a potential Biden-Trump rematch. Trump told CNN on Sunday that he believed Harris would be easier to defeat.
If Harris emerges as the nominee, the move would represent an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party: its first Black and Asian American woman to run for the White House in a country that has elected one Black president and never a woman president in more than two centuries.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Americans will soon hear from the party on next steps and the path forward for the nomination process. It was the first time in over a half-century that an incumbent US president gave up his party’s nomination.
If officially nominated, Harris, 59, would become the first Black woman to lead a major-party ticket in US history. A former attorney-general of California and former US 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 nation – to defeat Donald Trump.” – July 22, 2024
