President Biden made the historically rare decision Sunday to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, less than four months after being declared the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee and days after a dismal debate showing.
The 81-year-old president’s exit from the race – months before Election Day – comes after a debate performance against former President Donald Trump in which the incumbent appeared infirm and was at times incoherent – alarming Democratic donors and strategists.
Biden’s withdrawal is expected to set off a free-for-all for the Democratic nomination for president.
The nearly 4,000 delegates pledged to Biden have only five weeks or so to rally around a new candidate, as a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago is expected to be finalized by Aug. 7.
Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former first lady Michelle Obama have all previously been floated as possible replacements for Biden.
Harris, 59, is widely seen as the frontrunner due to legal constraints over the transfer of the Biden-Harris campaign’s war chest but many Democrats doubt her viability in the general election due to her favorability ratings often lagging even Biden’s.
Biden opted to throw in the towel after a series of embarrassing revelations that senior party leaders had no confidence in his ability to win — amid a mounting mutiny among rank-and-file congressional Democrats fearful that they too would lose if Biden went down in a landslide loss.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were among those who warned Biden about bleak polling data — while former President Barack Obama reportedly confided in allies that he had lost confidence in Biden’s path to another term.
The president launched his re-election bid in April 2023, asking voters to give him another four years to help him “finish the job.”
Biden, who at the time was already the oldest president in American history, opted to seek a second term despite plunging support, with polls at the time showing that the majority of Americans, including Democrats, did not want him to reprise his role in the Oval Office for another four years.
The president’s 15 months on the campaign trail did not alleviate voter concern about his age and mental acuity. A second term would’ve seen Biden possibly reach the age of 86 before the end of it.
Special Counsel Robert Hur noted in his February report on Biden’s handling of classified White House documents that he opted against recommending criminal charges against the president in part because a jury might view Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
In an interview with Hur, Biden couldn’t recall the years he served as Obama’s vice president or when his son Beau Biden died, according to the scathing report.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released one day before his doomed debate with Trump showed that 70% felt Biden was too old to be commander in chief.
His June 27 showdown with Trump, 78, was the death knell of his campaign.
Biden’s debate performance, which included proclaiming to have “beat Medicare” after looking down at his lectern for 10 seconds having lost his train of thought, led to panic and in the Democratic establishment.
The liberal New York Times editorial board called on Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee the day after the debate, calling the president “admirable” but “the shadow of a great public servant.”
“He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible. The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test,” the Grey Lady concluded.
Actor George Clooney, who hosted a $30 million Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden in June, also called on him to relinquish the nomination.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote in a Times op-ed. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Biden maintained a day after his dismal performance that he had what it takes to continue as president.
“Folks, I give you my word as a Biden: I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job, because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high,” Biden told voters in North Carolina — signaling that he has no intention of dropping out of the race.
Before Biden, it appears that no sitting president has ever dropped out of a re-election race after formally declaring their candidacy, actively campaigning and winning the required number of delegates needed for the nomination.
Only a handful of incumbent presidents have opted not to seek a second term in the White House, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Calvin Coolidge, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Buchanan and James K. Polk.
“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” Johnson famously announced in March 1968 televised address after winning the New Hampshire primary, citing the Vietnam War and domestic turbulence.
Johnson’s exit came shortly after his Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), captured 42% of the vote to Johnson’s 48% in the first presidential primary, and followed then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s (D-NY) entrance into the race.
Kennedy’s June assassination led to incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey receiving the presidential nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a confab marred by riots.
The 2024 Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19, will also be held in Chicago. New York Pist