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US President Joe Biden has abandoned his re-election bid following overwhelming pressure from fellow Democrats and endorsed his vice-president Kamala Harris to succeed him, saying it was “in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down”.
The president announced his decision to quit the race in a letter published to social media on Sunday, throwing this year’s White House contest into turmoil with less than four months to go until voters in the world’s biggest economy elect their new leader on November 5.
“It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your president,” Biden said. “And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, 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.”
The president added that he would speak to the country “later this week in more detail about my decision”. Biden has not been seen in public since Wednesday, when he was diagnosed with Covid-19.
Biden said in a second social media post that he would “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,” Biden added. “Let’s do this.”
The president’s unprecedented decision will reverberate across the globe, injecting new uncertainty into US policy and the White House’s authority on the world stage at a moment of acute geopolitical tension, from the Indo-Pacific to Gaza and Israel.
Biden’s announcement follows more than three weeks of wrenching debate among Democrats about his candidacy after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27 reignited concerns about his mental acuity and damaged his standing among American voters. An Associated Press poll out last week found nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters said Biden should drop out of the race.
The decision by the 46th American president not to seek a second term also marks the beginning of the end of one of Washington’s most storied political careers. Biden entered the Senate in 1973, became vice-president to Barack Obama in 2009, and gained the Oval Office in 2020 in an era marked by a global pandemic, economic recovery, inflation, and war.