President Biden announced Sunday that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
“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 my term,” Mr. Biden posted in a statement on social media.
Mr. Biden said he would address the nation later this week. Mr. Biden is currently at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, as he recovers from COVID-19.
Biden backs Harris for nomination
Shortly after the announcement, he endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination, although Mr. Biden cannot appoint a nominee himself. A source familiar said Mr. Biden and Harris spoke multiple times earlier Sunday ahead of his announcement. There was an emergency meeting of senior Democratic National Committee members happening Sunday.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” Mr. Biden posted on social media. “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. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Harris issued a statement on Sunday saying she is “honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”
“Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election,” Harris said. “And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
Harris also paid tribute to Mr. Biden, calling his decision to step aside for the 2024 race a “selfless and patriotic act.”
What comes next for Democrats
DNC chair Jaime Harrison said Sunday afternoon that “in the coming days, the Party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“This process will be governed by established rules and procedures of the Party. Our delegates are prepared to take seriously their responsibility in swiftly delivering a candidate to the American people,” Harrison said.
DNC executive committee member Alan Clendenin of Florida told CBS News on Sunday that he expects a “supermajority” of delegates to coalesce around Harris in the coming days.
“The delegates at the convention are the ones who place our candidate on the ballot,” Clendenin said. “If Biden was still on the ticket, that was going to be process.”
Never before has a sitting president and presumptive nominee dropped out of the race so late in the process, and Mr. Biden’s decision to do so underscores the severity of the crisis that enveloped his campaign after his disastrous debate performance against Trump.
In the days following the debate, a growing chorus of Democrats openly expressed concern over the president’s health and mental state, his ability to defeat Trump in November and his capacity to lead the country for four more years. The pressure to step aside steadily increased as Democratic lawmakers and governors went days without hearing from Mr. Biden directly, allowing questions about his future to swirl within the party ranks. And a growing number of Democrats on Capitol Hill publicly called for him to step aside.
In the weeks since the debate, the president tried to push back, insisting in a series of public appearances and meetings with Democratic elected officials that he was committed to staying in the race. “I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed. But even longtime allies began to urge him to change course.
The pressure eventually became insurmountable, with top Democrats in Congress telling Mr. Biden that he should step aside and allow a replacement to face off against Trump in November.
Mr. Biden is the first sitting president who is eligible for reelection to decline to run again since President Lyndon Johnson stepped aside the spring before the 1968 election. Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won the Democratic nomination that year and lost to Richard Nixon.
Only a handful of first-term presidents in American history have not sought a second term, the last being Rutherford B. Hayes, who declined to run again in the 1880 election. James Buchanan and James Polk also chose not to seek the presidency a second time. Calvin Coolidge, who assumed the presidency in 1923 after the death of Warren Harding, won his own term in 1924 and declined to seek another full term four years later.
