President Joe Biden on Sunday ended his faltering reelection campaign and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, an unprecedented move that upends the presidential race less than four months before the election.
Biden’s stunning decision came amid mounting pressure from fellow Democrats in the wake of his disastrous June debate performance in Atlanta, followed by weeks of failed attempts to reassure increasingly antsy supporters worried about the 81-year-old president’s age.
In a letter posted on social media, Biden said he believed “it is 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.”
Harris thanked Biden, calling his decision “a selfless and patriotic act.” She said it was her intention “to earn and win this nomination.”
“Together we will fight, and together we will win,” she wrote in her own social media post.
Many Democrats quickly closed ranks behind Harris, including former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Black Caucus and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose early support for Biden helped catapult him to the nomination in 2020.
In Georgia, U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff endorsed Harris, as did U.S. Rep Nikema Williams, chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia.
But former President Barack Obama stopped short of backing the vice president, saying instead that Democrats would pick an unnamed “outstanding nominee” next month at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Former President Donald Trump wasted no time taking a swipe at Harris — and Biden’s legacy. In a phone call with CNN minutes after Biden announced his decision to step aside, this year’s Republican presidential nominee said Harris would be easier to defeat than Biden and called the latter “the single worst president by far in the history of our country.” Prominent Republicans, led by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, began calling for Biden to immediately resign from office.
Crumbling support
Biden’s decision to step aside from the presidential race represents a remarkable turnabout for the Democrat, who for weeks repeatedly vowed to remain in the contest. At one point he said that only the “Lord Almighty” coming down and telling him to quit would change his mind.
But his defiant stance softened in mid-July after a failed assassination attempt against Trump galvanized GOP voters and a four-day Republican National Convention that projected a sense of unity and resilience.
As Biden’s public support crumbled, and polls showed a majority of Democrats wanted him to withdraw from the race, allies of the president signaled he was receptive to arguments that he should drop out.
His standing worsened when his party’s two congressional leaders privately expressed their concerns about his November chances, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told him she was skeptical he could win.
But perhaps the most devastating blows to Biden’s viability came from Obama, who told allies that he thinks Biden needs to rethink his candidacy. Biden served two terms as vice president under Obama, who is arguably the party’s most influential politician.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Biden’s second-term chances hinged on a trio of “blue wall” states he captured in 2020 — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — while also keeping Arizona and Georgia in the Democratic column.
Georgia in play
In Georgia, Biden enjoyed broad support from party officials and most of the state’s contingent of delegates to next month’s convention.
In the interviews, Georgia delegates made clear that a last-ditch effort on the convention floor to defeat him wouldn’t go anywhere, with many highlighting his support for a federal voting expansion, green energy initiatives and a sprawling infrastructure package.
But rank-and-file voters expressed deeper concerns in dozens of interviews. And polls for weeks have shown Biden lagging behind Trump in Georgia and other competitive states.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Just moments before Biden dropped out, his campaign was staging a celebratory event in McDonough for its latest Georgia office opening. Henry County Chair Carlotta Harrell was urging the crowd to ignore the Biden naysayers.
“Stop listening to the rhetoric and all that,” she said. “We’ve got to come together as Democrats and stop fighting one another and let’s work united. Because really what they want to do is get Biden and Harris out.”
Trump’s allies, meanwhile, are increasingly confident that Georgia is slipping toward the GOP four years after Biden narrowly captured the state.
Some Republicans say the campaign only needs to drive up base turnout rather than appeal to swing voters to shatter the fragile alliance of liberals, suburbanites and “Never Trumpers” that fueled Biden’s win.
And Trump’s MAGA supporters have leaned into the chaos across the aisle, mindful of their own nominee’s tumultuous history.
In his past two quests for the White House, Trump was the single-biggest source of division within the Republican Party — and the greatest uniter of Democrats who used his candidacy to forge a disparate coalition to defeat him. With Biden dropping out of the race, Trump now becomes the country’s oldest-ever nominee for president.
Now it’s the Democrats’ turn to confront an intraparty rebellion. Trump, by contrast, enjoys the nearly unanimous support from the party’s rank and file and elite, with skeptical voices either driven out of the party, defeated at the ballot box or quieted in the name of party unity.
What happens now?
The path ahead for Democrats is uncertain, though the timing of Biden’s withdrawal means he can release the roughly 99% of the party’s pledged delegates he earned during primaries to another candidate.
Presumably, the 4,000 delegates would follow his guidance to support Harris, though they aren’t mandated to do so. That could set the stage for a messy battle at the party’s nominating convention next month in Chicago.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison on Sunday thanked Biden for his service and vowed the party in the coming days would “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“This process will be governed by established rules and procedures of the Party,” Harrison said in the statement, which did not mention Harris. “Our delegates are prepared to take seriously their responsibility in swiftly delivering a candidate to the American people.”
But Democrats, intent on defeating Trump, seem likely to coalesce quickly around Harris. Several party leaders have already endorsed her, mindful that bypassing the nation’s first Black vice president could alienate the party’s African American base.
There was broad consensus among delegates The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed earlier this month to back Harris if the decision was thrown to them, with some saying if Biden trusted her enough to make her his running mate, then Democrats should also back her as his successor.
“The only choice that should be made is Kamala Harris,” said Thelma Johnson, who is also a Black woman. If not, she asked, “are we saying she’s not qualified enough … or that she doesn’t qualify because of her race?”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
State Sen. Josh McLaurin, one of the top Democrats in the Georgia chamber, predicted sharp backlash and internal turmoil if Harris is circumvented by a white rival such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“If Joe Biden stands aside, we can’t just jump over Kamala Harris like she’s not there,” he said. “We can’t just let national polling or punditry give us something new and exciting.”
Harris made history as the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president, and she could energize key parts of the Democratic base where enthusiasm has slipped. She would become the first woman of color nominated for president by a major political party.
A former U.S. senator from California and state attorney general, Harris has earned praise as a stalwart Biden supporter and an aggressive critic of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 overturning abortion rights.
She has forged deep and extensive ties in Georgia and counts many of the state’s most prominent Democrats as close allies. She’s trekked to Georgia five times this year and 14 times overall since being sworn in.
But Harris has also been mocked for verbal gaffes and assailed for failing to deliver on initiatives she was deputized to lead, such as addressing the root causes of the immigration crisis.
Other potential contenders for the Democratic nomination include several governors — Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has also been mentioned as a possible candidate, though it’s highly unlikely. Should he win election, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp would get to select his replacement in a divided Senate.
