U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he will not seek reelection, capping off weeks of speculation about his age and fitness for the office and throwing the pivotal 2024 election cycle into chaos.
The 81-year-old president announced his decision in a letter posted on X, ending a political career that has spanned more than 50 years and sending immediate shockwaves through the Democratic Party as it gears up for a heated electoral battle against former President Donald Trump.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, 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.”
“I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” he added.
In a separate X post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s presidential nominee. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” he wrote.
The president’s decision came amid mounting calls from within his own party for him to step down after his debate performance last month in which he at times appeared forgetful and lost his train of thought, fueling questions about his ability to serve another four years in the White House. As concerns grew about his age and mental acuity, so too did worries about his ability to beat Trump in November as polls began to show support for Biden slipping.
Trump was nearly assassinated during a rally in Pennsylvania one week before Biden’s announcement.
Thirty-four congressional Democrats and four independents who caucus with the party had called on Biden to step down as of mid-Sunday.
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Trump, just three years younger than Biden, had repeatedly highlighted the president’s age and mental faculties in his own campaign ahead of the two rivals’ face-off in June that sparked the heated Democratic debate over the party leader.
Following his disastrous debate performance, Biden immediately pivoted from election to statesman duties, hosting dozens of world leaders for a NATO summit in Washington this month.
Even there, however, discussions on the sidelines of the summit were dominated by the president’s apparent declining health and age and how it would factor into the election cycle. Biden at one point introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin on a stage with other NATO leaders to quiet gasps and cringes before quickly correcting himself—underscoring such concerns at a critical summit with high national security stakes.
The last incumbent president to suspend his reelection campaign was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, about seven months before the election. Biden has suspended his own campaign just under four months from the November election.
This is a developing story. Stay tuned for more updates.