U.S. President Joe Biden ended his reelection marketing campaign towards Republican candidate Donald Trump on Sunday, leaving the presidential race in uncharted territory.
The historic resolution comes after fellow Democrats misplaced religion in his psychological acuity and skill to beat Trump.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve you as president,” the 81-year-old Democrat mentioned in a letter in X, posted whereas he was recovering from COVID at his seashore home in Delaware.
“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 focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
Biden mentioned he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his substitute within the race for the White House.
Biden bowed out after weeks of strain that started with a disastrous debate efficiency that raised fears over his well being.
The gorgeous transfer makes Biden the primary president in U.S. historical past to drag out so late in an election race, and the primary to bow out due to considerations over his psychological acuity and well being.
Biden spent greater than three weeks resisting calls to step down following the shock of the June 27 debate, at one level insisting that solely the “Lord Almighty” may persuade him to again out.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
In a bid to indicate he was as much as the job, he gave a number of interviews and what was billed as a “big boy” press convention wherein he took quite a few questions, however made additional gaffes together with calling Harris “Vice President Trump.”
A tide of voices inside his personal celebration calling on him to go, beginning with donor and actor George Clooney and ending with former president Barack Obama, sealed his destiny.
The finish lastly got here shortly after Biden had been identified with Covid, forcing him off the marketing campaign path and into isolation.
Biden’s resolution to drag out additionally caps a tense and chaotic interval within the US election, with Trump having survived an assassination try at a marketing campaign rally on July 13.
He joins a small membership of U.S. presidents who’ve determined to throw within the towel after only one time period, with the final being Lyndon Johnson in 1968 – a yr additionally marked by political turmoil and violence.
Johnson’s substitute as nominee, then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, went on to lose closely to Richard Nixon.
But Democrats are relying on Harris to fare higher, and hoping that she will stop convicted felon Trump from making a sensational comeback to the Oval Office.
In latest weeks, the Biden marketing campaign has reportedly been quietly finishing up a head-to-head survey of voters measuring how she matched up towards Trump.
While Harris struggled to make an affect in her first years within the White House, she has emerged within the final yr as a powerful performer on the marketing campaign path on key messages corresponding to abortion rights.
The former prosecutor has additionally made a lot of her life story as the primary girl in U.S. historical past to carry the vice presidency in addition to the primary particular person of Black and South Asian origin.
Harris is now set to be nominated on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19 in what guarantees to be a dramatic second – and a heartrending one for Biden.
Biden took workplace in January 2021 pledging to heal the “soul of America” after 4 turbulent years underneath Trump and the shock of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault by his supporters.
Overcoming a fame for verbal flubs, Obama’s former vice chairman pushed by way of an enormous COVID restoration plan and a inexperienced trade scheme.
U.S. allies welcomed his pledge that “America is back” following Trump’s trampling on worldwide alliances, and his sturdy help for Ukraine because it battled Russia’s 2022 invasion.
But he confronted criticism over the catastrophic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and inflation that meant overstretched Americans ignored in any other case constructive financial numbers.
Behind all of it had been the continued considerations about his age with a sequence of senior moments, together with tripping up the steps to Air Force One and falling off his bike, contributing to the doddery picture performed up by Republicans.
Source: www.dailysabah.com