What you need to know about Joe Biden ending his re-election campaign

Happy Monday and welcome to your special edition of US Election Countdown after yet another shock to the 2024 presidential race.

Joe Biden has made his final move to defeat Donald Trump: dropping out.

In a historic decision, Biden abandoned his re-election bid after weeks of intense pressure from the Democratic party to step aside, saying it was “in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down”.

Biden started to come around to the decision on Saturday evening at his Delaware beach house, according to people familiar with the matter. Just eight days after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump gave the Republicans new momentum, Biden’s decision has upset the race yet again with less than four months until election day.

So what happens now? [Free to read]

Biden has endorsed vice-president Kamala Harris to take over the top of the ticket and, so far, the party is coalescing around her. She’s already vetting potential running mates, including Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. However, the presidential nominee won’t be made official until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.

Here’s how it will work: There are 3,937 pledged delegates at the DNC, and 1,976 are needed to win the nomination. Biden has the support of 99 per cent of the pledged delegates. Now that he has dropped out, they are free to vote for whichever candidate they want, although this is very likely to be whoever the party coalesces around.

Biden shares a campaign committee with Harris, so she would retain access to its funds if she became the nominee. The committee raised $270mn in the second quarter. 

The president’s decision draws parallels with Lyndon B Johnson’s shock decision to pull out of the White House race in March 1968 when he said the presidency must not be sullied by “partisan divisions” while he focused on the contentious Vietnam war. 

Though Biden will be considered a lame duck until November, he is likely to follow in LBJ’s footsteps, focusing on his foreign policy agenda — primarily securing a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and cementing support for Ukraine — and hitting the campaign trail on behalf of his successor.

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Behind the scenes

Biden’s decision has energised Democratic megadonors, some of whom were quick to back Harris as his successor. The enthusiasm from donors — who had heaped pressure on Biden to bow out by threatening to halt funding — is crucial to Harris keeping her pole position. 

Brad Karp, a prominent Wall Street fundraiser and chair of the New York-based corporate law firm Paul, Weiss, jumped on the Harris bandwagon yesterday. 

“Kamala Harris would be a formidable nominee and make a superb president,” Karp told the FT’s James Fontanella-Khan, calling her “a dynamic and decisive leader and a bridge builder, who I believe could help unite our country, heal our divisions and help forge a better future for all Americans”.

However, Harris will need to move swiftly to choose a running mate, a west coast fundraiser told the FT.

“With 106 days to go, everybody knows it’s time to get on board,” he said. “She probably announces her [running mate] by the end of the week so that person can begin campaigning. It’s a full-on sprint at this point.”

Biden’s decision came after several party leaders and donors made it clear that they would rally behind Harris, said three people who had spoken with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, report James and Alex Rogers.

Datapoints

Betting markets are overwhelmingly putting their money behind Harris to be the Democratic nominee.

Harris has more than an 80 per cent probability of taking the nomination, according to PredictIt, which provides political betting odds.

Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, was seen as most likely to get the nomination after Harris. Behind her were Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and California governor Gavin Newsom. Clinton and Newsom have both voiced their support for Harris as the party’s nominee.

Yesterday, PredictIt gave Trump odds of more than 60 per cent to win an election against Harris.

Meanwhile, RealClearPolitics’s betting average had a 58.7 per cent chance of Trump winning the election to Harris’s 29.9 per cent.

Viewpoints