Biden announces withdrawal from presidential race

Joe Biden, the current US President, announced on social media X that he is refusing to participate in the elections:

“And while I intended to run for a second term, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country if I step back and focus solely on serving as president for the remainder of my term.”

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— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024

So US President Joe Biden is ending his campaign. After nearly a month of constant criticism and counter-claims that he is not yet too old for a possible second term, Biden announced on Sunday, July 21, that he will not run for US President again.

The Democratic Party's front-runner, Biden faced a growing chorus of voices (including from fellow party members and prominent party donors) calling for him to drop out of the campaign following the president's dismal performance in the first televised debate with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 27.

Now Biden has said he is withdrawing from the US presidential race, meaning Democrats urgently need to find a new presidential candidate – three months before the November 5 election.

In the lead-up to the convention in Chicago from August 19 to 22, party leaders will be racing to find a candidate they believe can unite Democrats. The goal is to select someone who will attract Americans across the ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party to the polls in November. Only if the Democratic candidate can inspire enough voters to vote will he have a chance of defeating Donald Trump.

Both the candidate endorsed by the Democratic National Committee and anyone else will be able to compete for delegate votes at the Chicago convention – that's the essence of an open convention. If someone is confident that they will be a better presidential candidate than the one chosen by the party leadership, they have the right to fight for the nomination. The only thing anyone who dares to run needs to do is collect the signatures of 600 delegates.

It's important to note that while Vice President Kamala Harris is a likely Democratic presidential candidate, she cannot automatically replace Biden as the nominee simply because she is in office. When a U.S. head of state is incapacitated mid-term, the vice president takes over. But the same does not apply to the presidential nomination when the incumbent president decides not to run.

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