Last month’s presidential debate was a disaster for President Joe Biden. But the Biden-Harris campaign kept limping along. The President told his supporters that the long pauses and faltering thoughts were mere symptoms of “a bad night.” But neither Democrats nor anyone watching bought the explanation. On Sunday afternoon, the damage finally caught up with the 81-year-old President. President Biden announced he would not pursue a second term.
In recent weeks, U.S. President Joe Biden misnamed world leaders and public figures, performed poorly while debating former President Donald Trump, and struggled to climb and descend the stairs of Air Force One. With the handwriting seemingly on the wall, several Democratic lawmakers called for him to resign.
President Biden issued a statement Sunday. He said he would no longer stand for reelection in 2024 but would serve out the rest of his term. Moments later, he issued a separate statement endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. She intends to pursue the nomination.
Democrats like Nick Vallier seem relieved at the President’s announcement. Vallier says he was too embarrassed to finish watching the debate. He told a WORLD reporter, “The American people see he isn’t fit to do the job anymore, and if we have any chance of defeating Trump, it’s not with Biden.”
In his Sunday press release, the struggling President said, “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president. 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.”
The President plans to address the nation this week with more details about his decision.
Democrats must now hope President Biden’s replacement—whoever that will be—can emerge from his shadow and unite the party . . . with just over 100 days until the election.
Shannon O’Brian is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. She says the moment has few parallels in American history. The closest would be when President Teddy Roosevelt walked away from the Republican convention and began a new party in 1912.
In that instance, Roosevelt lost the bid and took Republican William Taft down with him. Woodrow Wilson emerged victorious.
President Biden’s 11th-hour change leaves Democrats trying to build momentum from scratch.
The upcoming Democratic National convention will take place August 19-22. There, Democrats will decide the party platform, and “the party platform they’re operating under right now, Joe Biden had a big hand in,” O’Brian says. “They’re going to have to adapt whatever Biden did.”
Over the years, Republicans have seized on the President’s many blunders and often highlighted his age as a disadvantage.
His age has also been a political weapon for former President Trump who, since 2019, has called the President “Sleepy Joe.” But to some President Biden supporters, his decline has come as a slow-moving surprise.
Craig Ellis, a Democratic voter from California, has followed President Biden’s career for most of his life. In recent months, he’s seen the President’s shuffle and heard his wispy voice.
Coming into the June 27 debate, he still thought of President Biden as the guy that delivered the State of the Union in March—old but forceful and even feisty. But within minutes, everything changed. Ellis felt worried, and then discouraged, and then angry.
“I watched the debate fully hoping to see the strong Biden from the State of the Union,” Ellis remembers. “I was feeling really upset with the Democrats—I was mostly upset at people around him that they let it get this bad.”
Before the debate ended, Ellis knew President Biden had to go.
