Biden withdraws, remains president and endorses Harris

President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, flipping the election results four months before Americans cast their votes and providing a stunning ending for the Scranton native whose political career spanned five decades.

Biden, 81, wrote in a letter released Sunday afternoon that he is ending his campaign but will serve until the end of his term in January.

“I believe it would be in the best interests of my party and the country for me to resign and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the rest of my term,” he said.

Biden, whose decision upends an already unprecedented presidential election, said he plans to address the nation this week.

The president also announced his support for Harris, saying selecting her as vice president was “the best decision I’ve made.”

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), shortly after announcing he would be dropping out of the race. “Democrats — it’s time to unite and defeat Trump. Let’s do this.”

His announcement comes amid a revolt within his own party after last month’s failed debate that left Democrats questioning his mental and physical fitness. A series of polls since then have shown the president trailing former President Donald Trump in key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, and losing ground in states once considered safely blue. Privately, some party donors and prominent politicians have launched a pressure campaign to force Biden to withdraw.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats were divided, with some fully supporting Biden as the nominee and some expressing concerns but never publicly calling for him to step down.

Several Republicans responded to Biden’s announcement by asking whether he is still fit to serve as president if he steps away from the campaign. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) she said she would call on Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Among Democrats on Sunday, praise for the president poured in from some of his closest political allies, who called his accomplishments in just one term historic and his decision to step down selfless and courageous.

“Joe Biden has always put Americans first, and he’s one of the toughest fighters I’ve ever known,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.). “Every time life knocked him down, and it knocked him down harder and harder than anyone I know, he got back up. I think he’s been determined over the last three weeks to keep pushing, to keep campaigning, to keep fighting. I’m incredibly proud of him.”

Biden’s decision to withdraw makes him the first sitting president since Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to renounce his party’s nomination. But Biden’s decision came much later in the election cycle, less than a month before the party convention in Chicago. It is the latest resignation of a sitting president in contemporary history.

Although Harris has not been officially nominated, Biden’s endorsement makes her likely to be endorsed by party leaders and embraced by the national committee when its 4,700 delegates meet to choose a candidate at the party convention in Chicago next month. Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Sharif Street said Sunday he would call a separate state party vote to endorse her in the next day or two.

Harris’ campaign for president, which officially launched Sunday, will likely take over the campaign infrastructure and the president’s substantial war chest.

While speculation had been growing that Biden was considering a withdrawal, it came as a shock to many, including those who worked for him. “I kept reading the statement, thinking it was a fake,” a Philadelphia employee who was not authorized to speak to the press said Sunday.

The Biden campaign has already hired more than 200 people in Pennsylvania. During a call with staffers across the country, campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said Biden staffers would have jobs if they wanted them on Harris’ campaign if she were the nominee.

Harris, a former prosecutor who served as a U.S. senator from California, ran for president in 2020 and lost to Biden in the Democratic primary. She is the first Black, Asian American and female vice president in the country’s history.

If she wins in November, Harris would become the first female president in U.S. history and the first president of Asian descent.

Shapiro to Runner Up with Harris for Vice President?

If Harris were to officially win the nomination, a handful of senators and governors would be in a position to vie to be her vice presidential running mate, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a moderate Democrat considered a rising star in the party.

Shapiro endorsed Harris on Sunday in a statement saying he had spoken to both Biden and Harris.

“I’ve known Kamala Harris for almost two decades — we’ve both been prosecutors, we’ve both stood up for the rule of law, we’ve both fought for people and we’ve both gotten results,” Shapiro said. She called Harris “a patriot worthy of our support.”

Several Pennsylvania Democrats have already promoted Shapiro as a forceful vice presidential candidate, given Pennsylvania’s importance in the presidential election. Other leading Democrats considering him as a vice presidential candidate include North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The Democratic nominee will face a Republican Party united around Trump, who earlier this year became the first former president to be convicted of a crime and this month survived an assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania.

Trump responded to a Truth Social post criticizing Biden without mentioning Harris. “Corrupt Joe Biden was not fit to run for President and is certainly not fit to serve and never has been,” Trump wrote.

Other Republicans have condemned the move as “anti-democratic,” and those attacks are sure to continue in November.

“Democrats like to portray themselves as ‘defenders of democracy,’ but party elites have united in the shadows to force Joe Biden to back down and support Kamala Harris,” said Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, a Republican who campaigned with Trump.

“Of course his decision was not easy”

At last week’s Republican National Convention, the GOP enthusiasm stood in stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s malaise about Biden’s reelection chances. In the weeks following the debate, the president repeatedly insisted he had “had a bad night” but would stay the course, attacking at elected officials who suggested that he withdraw and called on them to unite around him.

But pressure from Biden’s Democratic colleagues has increased in the past week, reaching a head on Wednesday when reports emerged that leaders at the highest levels of the party — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and retiring Speaker Nancy Pelosi — had recently told Biden that members of Congress were concerned about his chances. The Associated Press news agency reported that On Thursday, former President Barack Obama expressed similar reservations about allies.

“Joe Biden was not only a great president and a great legislative leader, but also a truly incredible human being,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday. “His decision was obviously not easy, but he once again put his country, his party and our future first. Joe, today you show what a true patriot you are and a great American.”

Similar praise came from Pennsylvania Democrats, both those who supported him amid calls to withdraw and those who were more skeptical.

“President Joe Biden is a patriot,” said Brendan Boyle, a Democrat representing Philadelphia. “He selflessly put his personal ambitions aside to do what he believed was best for our country. Today and every day, in the dark and the bright, I am always proud to be one of Joe Biden’s biggest supporters.”

Biden’s departure from the race ends a political career that began in 1973, when he was elected to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate at age 29, becoming one of the youngest senators in the nation’s history. For the next 36 years, Biden became an elder statesman of the Senate, chairing the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees. He maintained close ties to his Scranton roots and was often referred to as the third senator from Pennsylvania.

During the campaign, he was adept at connecting with ordinary voters, often talking about his working-class upbringing and his own personal history marked by tragedy. Biden’s first wife and daughter died in a 1972 car crash, and in 2015, his son Beau died of cancer.

After twice unsuccessfully running for president, Biden became vice president in 2009, serving alongside Obama, the first black president in the country’s history.

In 2020, Biden tried a third time, running for president against incumbent Trump, promising to restore decency to the White House and support the country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden’s victory was sealed days after the election, when he won Pennsylvania, the state where he was born. In Philadelphia, where a batch of mail-in votes counted put Biden in first place, his supporters danced in the streets.

As president, he oversaw the post-pandemic recovery and steered the country’s position as war erupted in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. His legislative accomplishments include massive investments in improving America’s infrastructure and responding to climate change.

But post-pandemic inflation has meant rising prices for groceries, gas and homes over the past few years, leaving many Americans dissatisfied with the state of the economy. Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted, with nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapproving of the president.

While some Democrats shifted their tune Sunday to celebrate the opportunity Biden’s decision could give the flagging party in a high-stakes election year, others said it was a gloomy day for a president they had gotten to know personally.

Biden’s personal tragedies have made him an empathetic political ally.

In a tearful interview Sunday afternoon, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Philadelphia), who campaigned with Biden across the country, called Biden basically decent.

He said Biden called him personally after he lost the election to urge him to stay on track. They once had a longer conversation about personal loss and tragedy.

“For some politicians, their kindness is an act. It’s a political strategy. It’s something they use to promote their personal ego,” Kenyatta said. “For Joe Biden, it’s so real.”