President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race on Sunday after nearly a month of pressure from Democratic leaders and donors to oust him.
“Serving as your president has been the greatest honor of my life,” Biden wrote in a letter sent Sunday to X. “While I intended to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and our country that I step aside and focus solely on fulfilling the duties of my presidency for the remainder of my term.”
The letter did not provide details on how Democrats will determine their next presidential nominee, but Biden wrote that he will “speak to the American people in more detail about my decision later this week.”
Biden called Vice President Kamala Harris a “great partner” in the letter and later posted his “full support and endorsement.” If Harris becomes president, she will likely manage the $240 million the campaign has raised over the past few years, according to CNBC. Donors and reportedly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have also voiced support for some form of open nomination process.
Biden’s unprecedented decision came at the end of an extraordinary three-week run that began in late June with debates with Republican candidate Donald Trump in which Biden, whose age and health were already major issues in the election, spoke almost incoherently at times.
Donors, newspaper editorial boards and elected officials then began calling for his resignation.
Democratic megadonors including Laurene Powell Jobs and Ron Conway have begun discussing ways to replace Biden before or during the Democratic National Convention. The New York Times report.
“I’ve seen emails from people in Silicon Valley saying, ‘I’m not going to donate any more until I feel more confident,'” Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a Biden donor, told WIRED earlier this month.
Many Democrats, including key Biden allies, have also expressed concerns about the president’s future viability as a candidate and reportedly launched a pressure campaign to encourage Biden to withdraw from the race. In television interviews immediately after the debate, party leaders such as Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn said it was natural to question Biden’s fitness to serve. “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a symptom?'” Pelosi said in an MSNBC interview. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reportedly told the president that their party members were concerned about down-ballot elections if Biden remained the nominee. Others, such as Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, as well as several House members, have called on Biden to withdraw from the race.
While the assassination attempt on Trump seemed to temporarily quell the insurrection, reports that Pelosi and Schumer had personally told Biden that he had no chance of reelection seemed to signal Biden’s demise as his support collapsed. According to CNN, Pelosi also privately told Biden that the polls showed increasingly dire prospects for Democrats with Biden at the top.
The Democratic candidate will face off against a Republican Party newly invigorated by the success of populist wing and alliances with powerful Silicon Valley investors like Elon Musk, both of which are embodied in the candidacy of J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old Peter Thiel acolyte, to be Trump’s vice president and successor.
“Now I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of those who worked so hard for my reelection,” Biden wrote. “I also want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being a tremendous partner in all of this effort.”
This is a developing story.
