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After weeks of mounting pressure from fellow Democrats and media pundits, President Joe Biden has decided to bow out of the 2024 presidential race against Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Biden, who was elected to office in 2020, resisted calls for him to step down for weeks but finally relented after the caliber of party officials seeking his withdrawal reached the tippy top (including, reportedly, former President Barack Obama), claiming he had the best chance to win.
Biden announce his decision to bow out of the race in a statement shared to X (formerly known as Twitter) on Sunday, July 21, noting that he plans to address the nation in further detail later this week.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he said. “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.”
pic.twitter.com/RMIRvlSOYw— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
Despite handily winning the Democratic primary against challengers Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, and Jason Palmer with over 14 million votes, which amounted to 87% of the contest, Biden faced enormous pressure to relinquish his delegates at the DNC. Questions about his ability to beat Trump began to surface in earnest after his performance at the first debate with Trump.
However, Biden remained defiant in the face of those calls, even vowing to return from his isolation after being diagnosed with Covid to the campaign trail in the days after Trump’s RNC acceptance speech.
More to come on this developing story…
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