WASHINGTON, DC — On Sunday, President Joe Biden released a statement announcing that he is going to "stand down" in the 2024 Presidential election.
In a statement released on social media, President Biden says that while it has "been [his] intention to see re-election, [he] believes it is in the best interest of my party and the country for [him] to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling [his] duties as President for the remainder of [his] term."
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
For weeks, President Joe Biden ignored calls from Democrats in Congress to drop out of the Presidential race. Arizona Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Greg Stanton were among the first to ask the President to step aside.
Watch ABC Special Report coverage on the Democratic race:
Biden dismissed his poor debate performance in June as a one-off, blaming the product of a lingering cold and fatigue.
Regardless, his poll numbers continued to slip and, fearing he may hurt Democrats in down-ballot races in November, party leaders and donors joined in on urging him to step aside.
Biden turned a deaf ear to those calls.
On Friday, his campaign announced that the President is anxious to return to the campaign trail next week after he recovers from COVID-19. Prior to the diagnosis, Biden sat down for interviews with ABC and NBC News, held an hour-long press conference following the NATO Summit, and attended campaign events before receptive audiences in Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.
On the road, the President often doubled down, telling a crowd in Wisconsin, “I’m staying in the race” and “I’m in it to win it.”
But the calls to end his campaign only grew louder.
It is a rarity in history to force a President to either leave office or, in this case, to not seek re-election. But it has happened.
On Aug. 7, 1974, John Rhodes, an Arizona Republican who was the minority leader of the House of Representatives, joined Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania in telling President Richard Nixon his attempts to survive Watergate were pointless.
Two days later, Nixon resigned.
For Biden, his insistence on remaining at the top of the ticket was eventually drowned out by those who said no. Now that the terms of surrender are hashed out, the Democrats move on and hope there is still enough time to defeat Donald Trump.
Former President Donald Trump officially secured the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, days after he was injured in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally. It’s unclear who the Democratic nominee will be upon Biden’s exit from the race.
