President Joe Biden on Sunday abruptly abandoned his campaign for a second term under intense pressure from fellow Democrats and threw his support to Vice President Kamala Harris to lead their party in a dramatic last-minute bid to stop former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a letter posted on social media. “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.”
Biden then posted a subsequent online message endorsing Harris. “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he wrote. “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.”
The president’s decision upended the race and set the stage for a raucous and unpredictable campaign unlike any in modern times, leaving Harris just 107 days to consolidate support from Democrats, establish herself as a credible national leader and prosecute the case against Trump. Recent polls have shown her competitive with and even slightly ahead of Trump.
Although Democratic convention delegates must ratify the choice of Harris to take over as standard-bearer next month, Biden’s endorsement meant the nomination was hers to lose and she appeared in a powerful position to claim it. While Biden, 81, remained president and still planned to finish out his term in January, the transition of the campaign to Harris, 59, amounted to a momentous generational change of leadership of the Democratic Party.
(Erin Schaff/The New York Times) President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watch the Fourth of July fireworks over the National Mall at the White House in Washington on July 4, 2024. Biden on Sunday, July 21, 2024, abruptly abandoned his campaign for a second term under intense pressure from fellow Democrats and threw his support to Harris to lead their party in a dramatic last-minute bid to stop former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
The president said he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision.” One person informed about the matter said Biden had told his senior staff at 1:45 p.m. that he had changed his mind, an announcement that surprised many aides who had been told as recently as Saturday night that his campaign was still full speed ahead. The letter was then posted at 1:46 p.m.
It was not immediately clear whether he wrote the letter himself or had help, nor did his aides know when or how he might address the nation. They did not explain why he chose to do it via a letter rather than speak on camera, although he has been secluded at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since Wednesday night recovering from COVID and may not have felt up to a public appearance.
The last time he was seen in public, he disembarked from Air Force One in Delaware looking pale and tentative, pausing on the staircase, his mouth agape, before taking another couple steps and stopping again. Asked for his reaction to Democrats pushing him to withdraw, he said only, “I am doing well,” then struggled to get into his seat in the presidential limousine.
His decision, four days later, stunned many of his own team. During a conference call Saturday morning, his campaign co-chairs grew testy when officials talked about door-knocking and social media without addressing the elephant in the room.
By that evening, campaign aides at social events appeared in a foul mood and clearly expected Biden to stay in the race. Some allies said they thought that he was digging in. Even minutes before the surprise announcement, campaign aides were still working the phones to push Democrats to stand with him.
No sitting president has dropped out of a race so late in the election cycle in U.S. history, and Harris and any other contenders for the nomination will have just weeks to earn the backing of the nearly 4,000 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. While the convention is scheduled to take place in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22, the party had already planned to conduct a virtual roll call vote before Aug. 7 to ensure access to ballots in all 50 states, leaving little time to assemble support.
Although some Democrats have called for an open competition, Harris starts the truncated process in the strongest position. One potential rival, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, had previously said he would not challenge Harris.
In a statement, Harris praised Biden for his accomplishments and for “this selfless and patriotic act” in putting country ahead of his ambitions. “I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said. She added: “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.”
Trump responded to Biden’s decision not with the grace typically offered in modern U.S. politics when an opponent drops out, but with a characteristically caustic statement. “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was!” Trump wrote on his social media site.
Other Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, quickly piled on and demanded that Biden resign from the presidency immediately. “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president,” Johnson said in a statement. “He must resign the office immediately. Nov. 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
Biden’s withdrawal came 24 days after a disastrous debate performance against Trump cemented public concerns about his age and touched off widespread panic among Democrats about his ability to prevent the former president from reclaiming power. Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, appeared frail, hesitant, confused and diminished, losing a critical opportunity to make his case against Trump, a felon who tried to overturn the last election after losing.
Democratic congressional leaders petrified by dismal poll numbers mounted a concerted effort to persuade Biden to gracefully exit as angry donors threatened to withhold their money and down-ballot candidates feared he would take down the whole ticket. Polls after the debate showed that even most Democrats preferred that Biden cede the nomination to another candidate.
Although Trump, 78, is just a few years younger than Biden, he came across as forceful at the debate even as he made repeated false and misleading statements. Questions have been raised about Trump’s own cognitive decline. He often rambles incoherently in interviews and at campaign rallies and has confused names, dates and facts just as Biden has. But Republicans have not turned against him as Democrats did against Biden.
The president’s age was a primary concern of voters long before the debate. Most Democrats told pollsters more than a year ago that they thought he was too old for the job. Born during World War II and first elected to the Senate in 1972 before two-thirds of today’s Americans were even born, Biden would have been 86 at the end of a second term.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.