(The Center Square) – President Joe Biden ended his bid for reelection Sunday, opening the door for Vice President Kamala Harris or another top Democrat to replace him atop the ticket.
In a statement posted to X, Biden said he is stepping aside “in the “best interest of my party and the country.”
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said. “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.”
He also endorsed Harris to succeed him.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he said in a second statement. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. 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.”
The historic withdrawal comes just weeks before the Democratic National Convention is set to take place Aug. 19 in Chicago, where Biden’s pledged delegates will face tough decisions on who to replace him with, regardless of Biden’s endorsement.
Concerns over Biden’s age, declining cognitive abilities and physical health led more and more elected Democrats in Congress to call for his exit, seemingly on a daily basis. Earlier Sunday, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-West Virginia, joined the calls for the president to exit the race.
Biden’s support among Democrats began to freefall after his performance in the June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, when Biden stumbled over his own words and often lost his train of thought.
At a NATO news conference a couple of weeks later, Biden referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” when asked if he thought Harris was ready to be president if he were to step aside, one of many gaffes during the summit.
During the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, where Trump officially accepted the GOP nomination for president just days after a failed assassination attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Biden was hunkered down at his Delaware home, recovering from his third bout with COVID-19.
Biden has not fared well in 12 major polls tracking the 2024 general election in recent weeks, leading down-ballot Democratic candidates for Congress to raise concerns that his declining support could help Republicans to retake the White House and the U.S. Senate and solidify their majority in the U.S. House.
Trump led by an overall average of 3 points in the 12 polls. Biden only led in one poll, where he had a 2-point edge in the NPR/PBS/Marist poll. Trump and Biden were tied in the ABC News/Washington Post poll. Trump led in the 10 other polls as of Thursday.
In The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll of nearly 2,300 likely voters, conducted after the June 27 debate but before the attempted assassination on Trump, Biden’s deficit grew to three full percentage points nationally. The poll has a margin of error of 2.1%.
Until Sunday, Biden defiantly opposed calls to step aside.
While his June debate performance seemed to seal Biden’s fate, his deteriorating cognitive abilities made news months earlier.
In February, the Report of the Special Counsel investigating Biden’s taking classified documents to his home revealed the president had issues with his memory.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report stated.
The report also stated, “Mr. Biden’s memory also appeared to have significant limitations – both at the time he spoke to [Biden ghost writer Mark] Zwonitzer in 2017, as evidenced by their recorded conversations, and today, as evidenced by his recorded interview with our office. Mr. Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries. In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
