WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will not seek reelection this year, setting up a contested primary where Texas Democrats will vote for a replacement nominee for the first time in decades.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” the Democrat wrote in a letter addressed to the American people. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, 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.”
Biden quickly endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the party’s presidential nominee.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he wrote on social media. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. 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.”
Biden’s extraordinary move came after a jumbled debate performance late last month where the president failed to make coherent statements and often confused his points. The debate highlighted growing concerns about his advanced age.
Biden is the first president to withdraw since Lyndon Baines Johnson, who represented Texas for two decades in Congress, announced he would pull out of the 1968 election. President Johnson surprised the nation with his statement at the end of a speech one Sunday evening in March, just days before the Wisconsin primary.
Several Texas Democratic delegates, who will help select Biden’s replacement as the party nominee, immediately placed their support behind Harris after Biden’s endorsement.
“I am fully supportive of Vice President Harris, just as President Biden indicated in his comments today. I look forward to her acceptance speech this August,” Jordan Villareal, a delegate from Denton County, said in an interview.
The party will now likely select their next nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month. It will be the first contested convention since 1968, also held in Chicago, and 273 Texas delegates will vote for their pick.
Villareal said Biden’s withdrawal was “taking a lot of us by a bit of surprise, but I trust President Biden’s judgment. And if he believes this is what needs to be done for the party and the nation, then I trust his judgment in that.”
Karthik Soora, a national delegate from Houston, commended Biden’s decision.
“This is one of the most selfless decisions by a president,” Soora said. “I think this will cement an impressive legacy … he will go down in history as a remarkable figure, trying to always put the country first.”
He added that he was still processing the news but was strongly leaning towards backing the vice president, pending discussion with fellow Democrats in his area: “Harris County is Harris Country. Let’s win this.”
Passion Jackson, a delegate from Dallas, said the news came as a complete surprise and that she felt “really sad” for Biden. Harris is “the best person we can put forward,” Jackson said, but she was also worried about Harris facing misogyny during the election.
“We’re in uncharted territory at this point,” Jackson said.” I don’t even know what to expect.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin was the first Democrat in Congress to ask Biden to withdraw from the race. A slow drumbeat of similar calls echoed Doggett for the next two weeks, including a statement from fellow Texan Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth. Other Democrats, including Dallas congressman and Senate nominee Colin Allred, avoided taking a position.
The president, losing in many national and battleground state polls, had hoped for a boost of energy during his debate last month, but it instead sent a shockwave of worry through his party. This came just months before Democrats planned to confirm him as the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Pressure continued to mount as the bloc of pro-withdrawal Democrats grew to more than 30 members of Congress, while congressional leaders more gently prodded the president in private discussions, according to numerous news reports. Still, Biden retained the support of a close circle of advisers and a larger group of steadfast supporters in Congress that included eight Texas Democrats.
The presidential race was thrown into yet more chaos when a gunman shot at former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The incident, being investigated as an attempted assassination, drew outrage from Texas Republicans and forced Biden to postpone a campaign stop to Austin. The horror of political violence gave rise to rallying cries of unity at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Biden’s polling, already under water in most battleground states, slipped further. Democrats fretted that the attempted assassination would lock in a Trump victory.
Harris has polled slightly better against Trump, though one poll in Texas found that Harris was slightly more unpopular than Biden in the state.
Credit: by By Isaac Yu and Matthew Choi, Texas Tribune