NYT (“Biden Drops Out of Race, Scrambling the Campaign for the White House“):
President Biden abandoned his campaign for a second term under intense pressure from fellow Democrats on Sunday, upending the race for the White House in a dramatic last-minute bid to find a new candidate who can stop former President Donald J. Trump from returning to the White House.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he said in a letter posted on social media. “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.”
Mr. Biden, who evidently plans to serve out his term through January even as he pulls out as a candidate, said he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision” and expressed thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.” But he did not immediately endorse her and said nothing about how the Democratic Party should proceed to pick a new nominee.
The president’s decision set the stage for an intense, abbreviated scramble to build a new Democratic ticket, the first time in generations that a nomination will be settled at a convention rather than through primaries. Although he did not endorse Ms. Harris, she starts the truncated process in the strongest position, but could face challenges from other Democrats.
While Mr. Biden has six more months in office, the transition of the campaign to whomever is chosen will amount to a momentous generational change of leadership of the Democratic Party. The eventual nominee will have just over 75 days after next month’s convention to consolidate support from Democrats, establish themselves as a credible national leader and prosecute the case against the Republican former president.
WaPo (“Biden makes stunning decision to pull out of 2024 race“):
President Biden has decided he will end his reelection campaign, he said in a statement released Sunday, a decision certain to send shock waves through the political world, following a stumbling debate performance that widely alarmed Democrats about the 81-year-old president’s fitness for office and ability to defeat former president Donald Trump.
“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 reminder of my term,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden’s exit leaves his party in a virtually unprecedented position with months until the Nov. 5 election. Vice President Harris, a former senator from California, would bring her own liabilities to the race if she jumps in. Her approval ratings have largely mirrored the decline of Biden’s since 2021, and her own campaign in the 2020 presidential primary fell apart before voting began.
The Democrats’ predicament — a candidate dropping out after sweeping mostly unchallenged through the party primaries to become the presumptive nominee — is unknown in the modern era. It caps weeks of delicate strategizing by party leaders on how to dislodge Biden, a proudly stubborn figure known to bristle at those who write him off. It signals the conclusion of a remarkable half-century political career that began when Biden won election to the Senate in 1972 as one of the youngest-ever senators and will now conclude in January with his service as the oldest-ever president.
The Democrats’ process for finalizing their nominee will be hurried, untested and fraught with deep uncertainty and the potential for further intraparty turmoil. The Democratic National Convention begins in four weeks in Chicago, although Democrats had initially planned to formally nominate Biden in a “virtual roll call” before the in-person gathering.
Wow.
We’re very much in uncharted territory here. While Lyndon Johnson also dropped out of a race in 1968, the circumstances were much different then. And it was much earlier in the campaign.
I haven’t the foggiest whether Kamala Harris—who almost has to be the replacement at the top of the ticket—will be able to beat Donald Trump. But Biden had clearly lost the confidence of his party and, increasingly, the country. I think this move was necessary.
Assuming he writes his own tweets, he has indeed endorsed Harris:
