-As he withdraws from the November presidential race
Current US Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to face former president
Donald Trump in the pending US presidential election, following the withdrawal of current US President Joe Biden.
The United States has yet to have a female president. The closest the country has come was in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination but ultimately lost to Donald Trump in the general election. Again, Trump is expected to confront a female even though there is still not much certainty that the United States may finally see a woman in the Oval Office.
US President Joe Biden Sunday endorsed current Vice President Kamala Harris, to contest in the pending United States presidential election, following his withdrawal after what has been considered as pressure from fellow Democrats.
The 2024 United States presidential election will be the 60th quadrennial presidential election, set to be held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Voters will elect a president and vice president for a term of four years. Howbeit, the current president has decided not just to step aside, but to support his current vice president, in the upcoming election. Madam Kamala Harris’ endorsement comes at a time in American history when the country has yet to elect a female president despite having several women who have come close to breaking that glass ceiling.
Throughout the history of the United States, there have been several notable female presidential candidates who have made significant strides in their campaigns. From Shirley Chisholm, who became the first African American woman to run for president in 1972, to Hillary Clinton, who became the first female nominee of a major party in 2016, women have been steadily making progress in their pursuit of the highest office in the land.
Kamala Harris, as the current Vice President, has already made history as the first woman, first black woman, and first Asian American woman to hold that position. Her endorsement by President Biden appears to solidify her position as a formidable candidate for the presidency. With her experience as a former Attorney General of California and a United States Senator, Harris has the credentials and the political acumen to lead the country.
Biden withdrawal:
President Biden abandoned his campaign for a second term under intense pressure from fellow Democrats on Sunday, July 21, 2024, upending the race for the White House in a dramatic last-minute bid to find a new candidate who could stop former President Donald J. Trump from returning to the White House.
Mr. Biden, who plans to serve out his term through January even as he pulls out as a candidate, said he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision” and expressed thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.” Shortly after, he endorsed her.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he said in a subsequent online post. “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.”
Mr. Biden, 81, announced his withdrawal after a disastrous debate performance against Mr. Trump cemented public concerns about his age and touched off widespread panic among Democrats about his ability to prevent the former president from reclaiming power. Democratic congressional leaders petrified by dismal poll numbers pressed Mr. Biden to gracefully exit, angry donors threatened to withhold their money, and down-ballot candidates feared he would take down the
whole ticket.
No sitting president has dropped out of a race so late in the election cycle in American history, and Ms. Harris and any other contenders for the nomination will have just weeks to earn the backing of the nearly 4,000 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. While the convention is scheduled to take place in Chicago from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22, the party had already planned to conduct a virtual roll call vote before Aug. 7 to ensure access to ballots in all 50 states, leaving little time to assemble support.
Mr. Biden’s campaign for a second term collapsed swiftly and stunningly after leading Democrats concluded that he would be unable to defeat Mr. Trump in the fall. During their nationally televised debate last month, Mr. Biden, the oldest president in American history, appeared frail, hesitant, confused, and diminished, losing a critical opportunity to make his case against Mr. Trump, a convicted felon who tried to overturn the last election.
Although Mr. Trump, 78, is just a few years younger than Mr. Biden, he came across as forceful at the debate even as he made repeated false and misleading statements. Questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s cognitive decline. He often rambles incoherently in interviews and at campaign rallies and has confused names, dates, and facts just as Mr. Biden has. But Republicans have not turned against him as Democrats did against Mr. Biden.
The president’s age was a primary concern of voters long before the debate. Even most Democrats told pollsters more than a year ago that they thought he was too old for the job. Born during World War II and first elected to the Senate in 1972 before two-thirds of today’s Americans were even born, Mr. Biden would have been 86 at the end of a second term.
Mr. Biden consistently maintained that his experience was an advantage, enabling him to pass landmark legislation and manage foreign policy crises. He maintained that he was the Democrat best equipped to defeat Mr. Trump given that he did so in 2020. But his efforts to reassure Democrats that he was up to the task following the damaging debate failed to shore up support. Instead, his slowness to reach out to party leaders and some of the answers he gave in interviews only fueled internal discontent.
In bowing out, Mr. Biden became the first incumbent president in 56 years to give up a chance to run again. With six months remaining in his term, his decision instantly transformed him into a lame duck. But he can be expected to use his remaining time in office to try to consolidate gains on domestic policy and manage ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East.
Mr. Biden’s overall approval rating remained mired at an anemic 38.5 percent, according to an aggregation of polls by the political analysis website fivethirtyeight.com, lower than nine of the last 11 presidents who made it this far into their terms. His aides brushed off such data, noting that Mr. Biden surprised forecasters in the 2020 primaries, as did Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.
Mr. Biden has noticeably slowed down in recent years. His decision to withdraw makes him an outlier in American history. Only three presidents have served four years or less without seeking a second term, all of them during the 19th century: James K. Polk, James Buchanan, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Several others wanted another term but failed to secure their party’s nomination.
The last president who had the option to run again given the two-term limit in the 22nd Amendment but chose not to was Lyndon Johnson, who served the remainder of John F. Kennedy’s term following his 1963 assassination and then won a full term of his own the next year, only to back out of another race in 1968 amid the war in Vietnam.
