Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race, opening path for another Democrat to face Donald Trump

Joe Biden has ended his bid for re-election after weeks of mounting pressure. He never recovered from one catastrophic night.

US President Joe Biden has ended his bid for re-election, opening the way for another Democratic candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump in November’s election.

On Sunday afternoon, US time, Mr Biden admitted it was in the “best interest” of the Democratic Party and the country for him to drop out of race. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on the ballot.

“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,” Mr Biden said in a written statement.

“I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

“It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your President.”

The 81-year-old’s decision to withdraw comes after, and largely because of, his halting performance in a televised debate against Mr Trump on June 27, which reinforced existing concerns about his age and mental acuity, and sparked a sense of “panic” inside the Democratic Party.

Since that debate, the President has fallen further in head-to-head polls against Trump, which already showed him trailing in every key swing state.

Media figures, Democratic operatives and an ever-increasing number of elected politicians, including the party’s senior most leaders, called for his exit from the campaign in recent weeks, believing Mr Biden incapable of winning the general election on November 5.

Multiple public appearances, including sit-down interviews with NBC and ABC News, plus a solo press conference at the NATO summit, failed to reassure them.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Ms Harris said in her own statement today.

“It is a profound honour to serve as his Vice President, and I am deeply grateful to the President, Jill Biden, and the whole Biden family.

“We have 107 days until election day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”

President Joe Biden. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The Democratic National Convention, where delegates will formally select the nominee, is scheduled to take place in Chicago in mid-August. Delegates pledged to Mr Biden as a result of the earlier, largely uncontested primaries will now be released to vote as they wish.

“I just want to say this on a personal level,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.

“I am emotional about the president’s decision. Because this president, Joe Biden, has been a transformational president, he’s been a great leader, he’s a good man, a decent man, who has done so much for this nation, done so much to see us as people, to value us, to fight for us.

“I’m emotional, because I’m still, still, riding with Biden. I still support my president. And we will get through this my friends, as we always do.”

Mr Biden will remain President until the end of his term next January. By the end of a second term, he would have been 86.

Trump responded to Mr Biden’s withdrawal announcement in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, and claimed he “was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve”.

“Never was,” Trump continued.

“We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly.”

President Kamala Harris?

Attention now turns to the Vice President, who was always going to be a frontrunner to replace Mr Biden.

“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,” Mr Biden said in his statement.

He added that selecting Ms Harris as his Vice President was “the best decision I’ve ever made”.

Former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton both joined Mr Biden in endorsing Ms Harris for president on Sunday.

“We are honoured to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can do to support her,” the Clintons said in a joint statement.

The Trump campaign has immediately pivoted.

“Nothing fundamentally changes” Jason Miller, one of Trump’s closest advisors, told AFP during the Republican convention, saying that any “radical liberal” Democratic opponent, Ms Harris or otherwise, shares “the responsibility for the failure of destroying our economy”.

“I’m going to show up and I’m going to campaign, whether it’s him or somebody else,” Trump told a radio network in Virginia before Mr Biden’s announcement, pointing to polls showing him doing as well or better against other Democrats.

Ms Harris faces her own challenges, including low approval ratings, but should she prevail, she will become America’s first female president.

Before being chosen as Mr Biden’s vice presidential nominee in 2020 – fulfilling both his promise to pick a woman and his preference to bring racial diversity to the ticket – Ms Harris represented California in the US Senate.

During her previous law career, Ms Harris served as a prosecutor, was elected District-Attorney of San Francisco, and later became Attorney-General of her state. She held that role from 2011-2017, after which she entered the Senate.

She then ran unsuccessfully against Mr Biden and a wide field of other Democrats for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

Kamala Harris being sworn in as Vice President in January of 2021. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Hers has not been the only name put forward as a replacement nominee for Mr Biden since the debate.

Among the others mentioned have been Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and a number of Democratic senators.

How Biden’s position became untenable

Mr Biden spent the immediate aftermath of his catastrophic debate performance privately considering his position, including during a meeting with family members at the presidential retreat, Camp David, on June 30.

According to media reports, First Lady Jill Biden, the President’s son Hunter and multiple grandchildren offered their support, telling Mr Biden he should remain in the race.

They reportedly discussed the possibility of adjusting Mr Biden’s staff, implicitly blaming his advisers for the poor debate.

But the damage was done. Mr Biden’s halting demeanour on stage, viewed by tens of millions of American voters, saw him stumble over his words, appear confused at times, and repeatedly struggle to form a coherent argument for his re-election.

By contrast, Mr Trump was relatively disciplined and cogent, by his standards.

Viewers were already concerned about Mr Biden’s capability to handle the demands and stresses of the presidency, with polls consistently showing a majority of Americans believed him to be too old for the job. The debate was supposed to prove otherwise. Instead, it made those worries far, far harder to overcome.

By the time he decided to step down, polls showed about 85 per cent of the electorate believed Mr Biden was too old to be president – as close to a universal opinion as you’re likely to find in a democracy.

Joe Biden during the debate. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP

And Donald Trump. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP

What few public appearances Mr Biden made in recent weeks did little to reassure his critics inside the Democratic Party.

On the night of the debate, after he had left the stage, Mr Biden appeared at a watch party with his wife, Dr Biden, who heaped praise on his performance. But in the eyes of many viewers, she only infantilised him in the process.

“Joe, you did such a great job, answering every question. You knew all the facts,” said Dr Biden, in a tone reminiscent of the one she’d use in her job as a teacher.

Days later, the US Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling, establishing that American presidents have “absolute” immunity from prosecution for many of their “official acts” taken while in office.

The ruling came in response to a legal claim from Mr Trump, who appointed three of the justices in the 6-3 majority, that he enjoyed immunity from prosecution for actions taken after the 2020 election, the result of which he tried to overturn.

A president would normally have been expected to hold a lengthy press conference in response to the ruling. Instead Mr Biden delivered four minutes of pre-prepared remarks at the White House, and took no questions from journalists.

Joe Biden. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Then, speaking to donors at a fundraiser in Virginia, Mr Biden offered an excuse for his stumbles in the debate. He blamed his previous international travel for making him tired, and said that he “nearly fell asleep” on stage.

“I wasn’t very smart,” the President said, according to The Washington Post.

“I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through I don’t know how many time zones – for real I think it was 15 time zones. I didn’t listen to my staff.

“And then I came back and nearly fell asleep on stage.”

This led to the inevitable riposte from his critics: that he had returned from his international travel a full 12 days before the debate, and had spent almost a week preparing for it at Camp David. The excuse didn’t fly.

On July 5, Mr Biden sat down for an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, to mixed reviews.

Fellow Democrats were unimpressed by the President’s answer when Stephanopoulos asked him how he would feel if he lost to Mr Trump.

“I’ll feel, as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Mr Biden responded.

Mr Biden’s colleagues felt this attitude was strangely self-centred, given his argument that Mr Trump was an existential threat to American democracy.

Joe Biden speaks at the end of the 75th NATO Summit. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Mr Biden then stood before the media for a lengthy solo press conferences at the end of the NATO summit in Washington D.C. on July 11.

It was another halting performance, and one marked by multiple gaffes. At one point Mr Biden referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”. At another he called Ms Harris “Vice President Trump”.

At the end of the press conference, journalists asked whether Mr Biden would step aside if advisers presented him with data showing Ms Harris would do better against Mr Trump.

“No, unless they came back and said there’s no way you can win,” he replied.

Democrats edged closer and closer to reaching that very conclusion.

The attempted assassination of Mr Trump on July 13 led to awkward questions about the enter of Mr Biden’s political rhetoric.

The shooting came as two of the most senior elected Democrats, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, were privately urging the President to step aside. On July 17, their stance became public knowledge, and reports also emerged suggesting former president Barack Obama was quietly expressing doubts about Mr Biden’s prospects.

From that point onwards, Mr Biden opponents within the party were further emboldened, and his fate became all but inevitable.