President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday following a nearly month-long pressure campaign mounted by Democratic leaders and donors to oust him.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden said. wrote in a letter sent to X on Sunday. “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 that I step down and concentrate solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
The letter did not provide additional details on how the Democratic Party might decide on his next nomination, but Biden wrote that he would “speak to The Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”
Biden called Vice President Kamala Harris “an extraordinary partner” in the letter, and later aware to offer her “full support and endorsement.” If Harris were to take office, she would likely control the $240 million raised by the campaign in recent years. According to CNBC. Donors and reportedly, Nancy Pelosi have expressed support for an open nomination process of some sort.
Biden’s unprecedented decision comes at the end of an extraordinary three-week period that began with a debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump in late June. In that debate, Biden, whose age and physical condition were already major issues in the election, appeared almost incoherent at times.
Subsequently, donors, newspaper editorial boards and elected officials began calling for his resignation.
Democratic megadonors Laurene Powell Jobs and Ron Conway, among others, began discussing how Biden could be replaced before or during the Democratic National Convention. he New York Times reported.
“I’ve seen some emails from people in Silicon Valley saying, ‘I’m not going to donate anymore until I have more confidence,’” Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn founder and Biden donor, told WIRED earlier this month.
Many Democrats, including some of Biden’s key allies, also expressed concern about the president’s viability as a candidate in the future and reportedly mounted pressure campaigns to encourage Biden’s withdrawal from the election. In television interviews shortly after the debate, party leaders such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn said it was fair to question Biden’s suitability for office. “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?'” Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reportedly told the president that party members were concerned about local races if Biden remained on the ticket. Others, such as Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, along with a number of representativescalled on Biden to withdraw from the election.
An assassination attempt on Trump appeared to briefly quell the revolt, but reports that Pelosi and Schumer had directly told Biden they did not believe he had a viable path to reelection showed that Biden’s political support had collapsed and appeared to mark the end. Pelosi also privately told Biden that polls showed an increasingly grim outlook for Democrats with Biden at the top of the ticket. According to CNN.
The Democratic candidate will face a Republican Party renewed by the victory of its populist wing and an alliance with powerful Silicon Valley investors such as Elon Musk, both represented by the rise of JD Vance, 39 years old and an acolyte of Peter Thiel, to the ticket as Trump’s vice president and heir apparent.
“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me re-elected,” Biden wrote. “I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all of this work.”
This is a developing story.