In a political earthquake, President Joe Biden announced Sunday he is ending his bid for a second term and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Biden, in a post on X, said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025 and will address the nation this week.
The stunning and virtually unprecedented move comes in the wake of the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis on Wednesday, which prompted more calls from within his own Democratic Party for him to drop out of the race.
By dropping his reelection bid, he clears the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to run at the top of the ticket, the first Black woman to do so in the country’s history. Biden, 81, did not mention her when he announced his move. It was unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party’s nomination, who was widely seen as the pick for many party officials – or whether the party itself would choose to open the field for nominations.
Reacting to US President Joe Biden’s endorsement of her as the nominee of the Democratic Party for this year’s presidential election, Kamala Harris said she was honoured and now intends to “earn and win” this nomination. She asserted that her aim was to unite the nation in “defeating Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda”.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he said in a statement on Sunday. “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.”
Almost two-thirds of Democrats wanted Biden, 81, to withdraw from the presidential race, according to an AP Poll released Wednesday. Biden’s announcement follows a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to quit the race after his shockingly poor performance in a televised debate last month against Republican rival Donald Trump.
The president struggled to put down a slow-boil uprising among some congressional Democrats and some influential donors who fear he lacks the capacity to defeat Trump in light of his halting performance in the presidential debate last month.