"Biden drops out of 2024 reelection race, bowing to Democratic Party doubts."
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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopoliticalnews.blogspot.com).
ELECTIONS
Biden drops out of 2024 reelection race, endorses Harris for nominee
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President Biden is ending his run for a second term in office, a bombshell decision just 105 days before Election Day, bowing to pressure from his party after a disastrous debate at the end of June where he seemed to lose his train of thought.
For Biden, 81, the June 27 debate hardened a narrative that he was too old for another four years in the job. He insisted for three weeks that he would fight to make a comeback. But on Sunday he said he had changed his mind.
"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," he wrote in a letter addressed to "my fellow Americans" posted on social media.
He followed up with a post endorsing Vice President Harris as nominee, and urged his party to come together.
His decision comes just a month ahead the party’s convention. But the path ahead to Nov. 5 is unclear, and it will be difficult for the party to get organized on time.
Not since March 1968 has an incumbent U.S. president opted out of running for a second term — when President Lyndon B. Johnson, under pressure over the Vietnam War, dropped out of the presidential race during a live television address.
A fumbled debate touched off Democratic panic
Polls have long shown that most voters disapproved of Biden's performance and thought he was too old for the job. But Biden’s campaign team had argued that support would pick up once voters had the chance to think about former President Donald Trump’s positions on abortion rights and his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Biden’s campaign thought the debate against Trump would kickstart this contrast. Scheduled months earlier than usual and with new rules, including no live audience and muted candidate microphones unless directed to speak, the debate was largely held on Biden’s terms.
The goal was to send a clear message to Biden’s doubters: that he could swat away concerns about his age by showing off his first-term record and decades-long political tenure.
Instead, the president spoke with a noticeably raspy voice, seemed overwhelmed at times, and failed to make concise and clear points on a number of issues key to his reelection platform, notably protecting abortion access.
The performance sent Democrats into a panic, and prompted a steady drip of private and public calls for Biden to step back from the campaign and make way for a new candidate.
Biden's damage control tour
Biden was defiant, saying his health was fine, and arguing that he was the most experienced and best-placed candidate to beat Trump.
He told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that only the "Lord Almighty" could make him drop out of the race, and privately met with Democratic lawmakers, governors, and donors to make his case.
Biden publicly railed against the "elites" in his party. "I don't care what those 'big names' think. They were wrong in 2020, they were wrong in 2022 about the red wave. They're wrong in 2024," Biden said on MSNBC's Morning Joe on July 8.
"Go ahead. Announce for president. Challenge me at the convention," he said.
Biden did a series of campaign stops and speeches in key states, giving fiery speeches to try to demonstrate that he "just had a bad night" at the debate. He gave a lengthy solo press conference, and sat for televised interviews.
He wheeled out new attack lines on Trump in a retooled stump speech — only to have to immediately scale back his rhetoric in the wake of an assassination attempt on Trump. As Republicans gathered at their national convention, he tried to campaign in Nevada to create some counterprogramming — then got COVID, sending him into isolation in Delaware.
"We can't catch a break," a Biden adviser told NPR on the day that Trump gave his acceptance speech at the Republican convention.
Party leaders conveyed concern that Biden would lose to Trump, and weigh on tough Senate and House races. Rep. Jamie Raskin told him he was like Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez, who in 2003, stayed in the game too long.
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