You're tired of me bragging about how I called this back in December. I know...I'm shameless. Sue me.
You're wondering who will end up as the Dem's choice? Kamila. End of story. Trust me...I'm never wrong (except half the time). Will she pick Gretchen as her running mate? NO fricken way.
You're welcome!
Biden Drops Out of Presidential Race
President ends his campaign for second term amid Democratic concerns over his age and abilities
By Andrew Restuccia and Annie Linskey, WSJ
Updated July 21, 2024 2:12 pm ET
WASHINGTON—President Biden said he was ending his presidential run, after failing to quell a Democratic rebellion against his candidacy following a catastrophic debate performance, according to a letter he posted on social media, capping a five-decade political career and marking one of the most monumental political collapses in American history.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden wrote in the letter. “And 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.”
He said he will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about his decision. His letter stopped short of endorsing a successor, but he thanked Vice President Kamala Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.”
The move came after Biden, 81 years old, and his allies aggressively played down widespread concerns from Democratic lawmakers, donors and political consultants about the president’s age, fitness for office and ability to win in November. Biden and his team, including Harris, were insistent that he wouldn’t step aside following a halting debate performance in late June.
Democratic efforts to oust Biden, while quieter in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, didn’t stop. Biden’s fundraising weakened. Behind the scenes, Democratic congressional leaders gave him grim assessments of the path ahead. Publicly, deflections started to stack up.
Now Biden’s decision to exit from the race leaves Democrats scrambling to replace him on their presidential ticket, just months before Election Day and weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It wasn’t clear whether the Democrats would pick their replacement during their convention or virtually beforehand.
And the shake-up is sure to stoke worries within the party that the turmoil could improve Trump’s prospects of returning to the White House, especially after the GOP’s convention in Milwaukee showcased how united Trump’s party is behind him.
Vice President Kamala Harris is a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. PHOTO: ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES
Biden’s decision to withdraw will also reverberate across the Republican Party. Some senior GOP officials privately held out hope that Biden would stay in the race because they thought the concerns about his age made him easier to beat.
Harris is the party’s most natural successor to Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer and, if selected to lead the ticket, would become the first Black woman to be a major U.S. political party’s presidential nominee. If Trump faces off against Harris, her candidacy would likely highlight the former president’s weakness with suburban and college-educated women.
Other Democrats who are seen within the party as top contenders for the job include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
In the end, Biden was unable to quell the discontent in his party after failing to effectively debate Trump. Biden, the oldest U.S. president in history, had an unsteady showing from the opening moments of the matchup. He stumbled over words, stammered through answers and trailed off without finishing sentences. At one point, he declared that he had “finally beat Medicare,” leaving viewers and his own advisers perplexed.
The televised debate amplified long-simmering concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity. He would have been 86 at the end of a second term. His senior advisers have said the president remains sharp, and they have responded angrily to suggestions that Biden is unfit to serve. But there have been signs in public and in private in recent months that he is deteriorating, according to people who have witnessed his behavior.
In the months before the debate, senior White House aides worked behind the scenes to shut down concerns about Biden’s age. When special counsel Robert Hur called Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” in a report detailing the results of his classified-documents investigation, the White House pounced, dismissing Hur as a partisan hack who shouldn’t be trusted.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Biden sometimes mumbled, stumbled over talking points, paused for extended periods and relied heavily on notes during meetings with lawmakers and senior diplomats, causing some to wonder whether he was slipping. In other closed-door meetings, especially those held during the day, Biden appeared cogent and engaged. The Journal reported Biden has good days and bad days. White House aides attacked the Journal for its reporting on Biden’s mental acuity.
In virtually every public opinion poll, voters said they thought Biden, who is 3½ years older than Trump, was too old to run for re-election. But White House and Biden campaign aides largely pushed aside the warning signs, arguing that voters would come around once campaign season got into full swing and the president and his team were able to draw a contrast with Trump.
President Biden at a postdebate campaign rally. PHOTO: ALLISON JOYCE/GETTY IMAGES
The debate indeed showed a contrast between Biden and Trump—but it wasn’t the one Biden’s team was hoping for. Speaking with a hoarse voice that his aides blamed on a cold, Biden was largely outmatched by Trump, who delivered a steady stream of attack lines and generally eschewed the loud and aggressive style that turned off voters in past debates. Though Trump peppered his answers with falsehoods and evaded many of the questions, his physical appearance and demeanor made him seem more in control than Biden.
Even before the debate ended, senior Democrats started having quiet discussions about whether Biden should remain on the ticket. For many, the trade-offs were difficult to parse. If Biden pushed ahead, another stumble could be enough to send Trump on a glide path to victory. But choosing another nominee was also fraught with risk. Any new pick would have just months to raise their profile with voters—and it was unclear whether a fresh face would be enough to best Trump.
As new polling emerged that showed Biden was bleeding support after the debate, there were signs the president’s fate was all but sealed. After five days without a single major Democratic elected official turning on Biden, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas) became the first Democratic lawmaker to call on Biden to withdraw.
Other Democratic lawmakers followed suit.
While many Democrats avoided publicly calling for Biden to step aside, some offered only muted support for the president staying in the race. Chief among them was Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), the former House speaker, who said in a television interview July 10 that Biden had to decide whether he wanted to run, brushing aside his oft-stated pledge to remain on the ticket. That same day, the actor George Clooney—a prolific Democratic fundraiser in Hollywood—wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that called on Biden to withdraw, dealing a damaging blow to the president.
Biden’s support showed new signs of cracking in mid-July, as top congressional leaders successfully pushed to delay a procedural vote on his nomination and California Rep. Adam Schiff called for Biden to bow out of the race. Schiff, a prominent antagonist of Trump and a close ally of Pelosi, was one of the highest-profile Democrats to make such a call.
Write to Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com and Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com
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