President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race

President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race

President Joe Biden announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 race for the White House, citing a disastrous debate with Donald Trump that raised concerns about his fitness for office. This decision comes less than four months before the election and after over 14 million Democrats had already cast primary votes supporting him. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump and encouraged the party to unite behind her, making her the favorite for the nomination at the August convention in Chicago.

• Reason for Withdrawal: President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race due to growing concerns within his party about his ability to serve and his chances of winning against Donald Trump in November ¹.
• Endorsement of Kamala Harris: Following his withdrawal, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump and encouraged his party to unite behind her ¹.
• Historic Announcement: Biden’s withdrawal marks an unprecedented move, as no sitting president has dropped out or died this close to the convention ¹.
• Impact on the Democratic Party: Biden’s withdrawal sets off internal Democratic tremors as ambitious officials maneuver to become his successor ¹. Factions have already formed around Harris, Whitmer, and Newsom ¹.
• Support for Harris: Many high-profile lawmakers have joined Biden in rallying around Harris, including Reps. James Clyburn, Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Adam Schiff, and Eric Swalwell ¹.
• Fundraising: Harris’s fledgling campaign gave Democrats an immediate jolt from small-dollar donors, with ActBlue reporting that groups using it raised $27.5 million in the first five hours of her campaign ¹.
• Next Steps: The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19, where delegates will choose their new nominee ². If the Democratic Party does not come together to support a new candidate, that could mean an open convention for the first time since 1968 ².

President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race

“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” she said.

Biden’s decision to bow out came after escalating pressure from his Democratic allies to step aside following the June 27 debate, in which the 81-year-old president trailed off, often gave nonsensical answers and failed to call out the former president’s many falsehoods.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. 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,” Biden wrote in a letter posted Sunday to his X account.

Nearly 30 minutes after he delivered the news that he was folding his campaign, Biden threw his support behind Harris.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in another post on X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Harris faces a staggering political to-do list in the coming days: securing the votes of delegates to claim her party’s nomination, picking a running mate, and pivoting a massive political operation that had been built to reelect Biden to boost her candidacy instead. Harris, if elected, would be the first woman and the first person of South Asian descent to be president.

There were early signs that the party was moving to coalesce around Harris, who scored the endorsements of the Congressional Black Caucus and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even before she had commented on Biden’s decision to quit the race. But notably, former President Barack Obama held off, pledging support behind the eventual party nominee.

Harris can use Biden’s campaign funds

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has taken the formal step to adopt the name of “Harris for President”.

The campaign now officially names Vice-President Kamala Harris as its candidate for president in the 2024 cycle, according to a letter sent to the Federal Election Commission, external, or FEC.

This is a huge step, as Biden and Harris share a campaign committee. She can now continue using the general election funds that the Biden campaign had raised previously.

Biden’s campaign war chest sat at $96m entering July, according to FEC filings. The party and several political action committees have additional funds that Harris will aim to secure by becoming the party’s official nominee.

Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who leads the Campaign Legal Center, said a “presumptive nominee stepping down months before Election Day is not an ordinary event, but it is also not a crisis”.

Harris can use Biden’s campaign funds because they shared a campaign committee, but “the rules are different” for a ticket that does not include the vice-president, Potter said.

What to know:

Biden drops out: The president ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris after a disastrous debate inflamed age concerns. Read Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal.
What happens next: How Biden passing the baton to Harris might work.
Praise, calls for resignation: Democrats hailed Biden’s decision as selfless while Republicans urged him to resign.
Inside Biden’s legacy: Historians and political advisers say history will be kinder to Biden than voters have been.
Broken barriers: Harris could become the first Black woman, person of south Asian descent to head major party’s presidential ticket.
“We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” the Clintons said in a statement.

But Obama, who had privately shared doubts about Biden’s reelection chances, stopped short of endorsing Harris even as he praised Biden for his decision to leave the race.

“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” he said in a statement.

Biden’s decision came as he has been isolating at his Delaware beach house after being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, huddling with a shrinking circle of close confidants and family members about his political future. Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide “detail” about his decision.

Harris found out about Biden’s plans on Sunday morning and senior campaign and White House staff were notified just minutes before the letter went out, according to people familiar with the matter who commented on the private discussions on condition of anonymity. Biden had been reflecting on his future for the past couple days and the decision was closely held.

Now, Democrats have to urgently try to bring coherence to the nominating process in a matter of weeks and convince voters in a stunningly short amount of time that their nominee can handle the job and beat Trump. And for his part, Trump must shift his focus to a new opponent after years of training his attention on Biden.

The decision marks a swift and stunning end to Biden’s 52 years in electoral politics, as donors, lawmakers and even aides expressed to him their doubts that he could convince voters that he could plausibly handle the job for another four years.

Biden won the vast majority of delegates and every nominating contest but one, which would have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, those delegates will be free to support another candidate.

Harris, 59, appeared to be the natural successor, in large part because she is the only candidate who can directly tap into the Biden campaign’s war chest, according to federal campaign finance rules.

Biden’s campaign formally changed its name to Harris for President, reflecting that she is inheriting his political operation — a sign of the advantage she has in the race for the Democratic nomination. Democratic groups, including the Democratic National Committee, also filed paperwork changing the names of their joint fundraising committees to reflect Harris’ candidacy.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, but the party had announced it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin.

It remained to be seen whether other candidates would challenge Harris for the nomination. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had been discussed as a possible replacement for Biden last year, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who challenged both Biden and Harris for the Democratic nomination in 2020, threw their support behind her Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee’s chair, Jaime Harrison, said in a statement that the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process” to select “a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who left the Democratic Party earlier this year to become an independent, is considering re-registering as a Democrat to vie for the nomination against the vice president, according to Jonathan Kott, a longtime adviser to Manchin.

Harris was spending Sunday afternoon calling Democratic elected officials and delegates as she works to lock up the nomination.

Harris received her first delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sunday. The Tennessee Democratic Party posted on X that its delegation voted during a meeting Sunday to back Harris after Biden’s departure from the campaign.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly — each from a swing state and mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris — also endorsed Harris Sunday evening.

Trump reacted to the news in a post on his Truth Social site, in which he said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve.”

“We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly,” he added. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

While Trump and his team had made their preference for facing Biden clear, his campaign had nonetheless ramped up its attacks on Harris as pressure on Biden to step down intensified.

Democratic officials, including many who were behind the effort to push Biden from the race, quickly released statements praising Biden’s decision.

“His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Joe, today shows you are a true patriot and great American.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York praised Biden as “one of the most accomplished and consequential leaders in American history.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Biden should immediately resign if he is not fit enough to run for office. In a statement, Johnson said, “November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”

In addition to his planned address to the country, Biden still intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House this week, according to a person familiar with the president’s schedule who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The exact timing of the meeting is still not set in stone as Biden continues to recover from COVID. Netanyahu is scheduled Wednesday to deliver an address to Congress and he is also expected to meet with Harris while in Washington.

In 2020, Biden pitched himself as a transitional figure who wanted to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he spent decades struggling to attain, he was reluctant to part with it.