US President Joe Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic nominee after stepping down from his re-election campaign on Sunday.
His initial statement did not include an endorsement of Harris, but he followed up a few minutes later with an expression of support.
“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.”
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“Today I want to 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. Let’s do this,” he added.
Harris, 59, would become the first Black woman to do run at the top of a major-party ticket in the country’s history.
It was unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party’s nomination — she was widely seen as the pick for many party officials — or whether the party itself would choose to open the field for nominations.
Biden, in a post on X, said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025 and will address the nation this week.
Biden’s announcement follows a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to quit the race after his shockingly poor performance in a June 27 televised debate last month against Republican rival Trump, 78.
Biden’s historic move — the first sitting president to give up his party’s nomination for reelection since President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 — leaves his replacement with less than four months to wage a campaign.
If Harris emerges as the nominee, the move would represent an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party — its first Black and Asian American woman to run for the White House in a country that has elected one Black president and never a woman president in more than two centuries of democracy.
With inputs from Reuters