Biden made the difficult but correct decision
President Biden has done a very difficult and admiral thing; he swallowed his pride, recognized the political situation he was in, and withdrew from the 2024 presidential race.
The fact that Biden is a fighter and has come from behind before makes his decision even more impressive. While tenacity is good, it is also important to know when you’re no longer effective, and the team would benefit from a substitute.
Biden had some advantages that made stepping down tough. As an incumbent he had an excellent record to run on, passing more consequential legislation than any president since Lyndon Johnson, including student loan forgiveness, limiting the cost of insulin, preventing banks from charging excessive fees, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has a lot of provisions to support the transition to a green economy, and the Chips and Science Act, which rebuilds the semiconductor industry in the United States.
He also managed one of the world’s best recoveries from the COVID-19 pandemic, taming inflation without increasing unemployment, which many economists thought couldn’t be done, while having steady economic growth. Most incumbents running on such a record would be favored. But voters care about the future, not the past, and voter concerns about age were making it difficult for Biden to change the narrative.
Of course, Republicans claim Biden has ruined America, focusing on issues that polls show hurt Democrats, such as crime and immigration. Repeating charges in a loud voice doesn’t make them true; crime is broadly down, and immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born residents, and murders have decreased dramatically from their peak in 2020, while Donald Trump was still president. Republicans repeatedly charge that Biden has allowed an “invasion” at our southern border, but while proclaiming the issue’s urgency, Trump quashed the bipartisan deal to address the crisis so he could run on it – the very definition of putting his own political interests over the country. Quite the contrast to Biden.
Biden’s withdrawal also reflects well on the Democratic Party. Republicans charge that Biden withdrew because of pressure from party elites, so that this was an anti-democratic coup that stifled the popular will, but that has it backwards. The leaders of the Democratic Party pressured Biden to withdraw because there was grassroots movement away from him.
Republicans charge that Biden’s leaving the contest demonstrates that he is unfit to be president and that he should resign immediately. But the skills required to be president and the skills required to campaign for president are different, and there has been no notable decline in Biden’s ability to govern. Campaigning and public speaking have never been Biden’s strength; he was able to avoid a lot of campaigning in 2020 because of the pandemic. He did not withdraw because he couldn’t do the job in 2025, but because his loss of support meant that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to do the job.
Biden’s hourlong press conference at the end of the recent NATO summit demonstrated his command of the job. Trump could never engage in a fact-based discussion of issues for that long because he has neither the interest nor the knowledge. At a recent rally in Florida, he said “I didn’t even know what the hell NATO was too much before, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out, like about two minutes.”
Republicans had the opportunity to turn away from Trump after the attempt to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021. Republican leaders, such as U.S. Mitch McConnell and U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy publicly blamed Trump for his role in instigating the coup. Trump had lost the popular vote twice and the Electoral College once, and his Senate candidates, such as Georgia’s Herschel Walker and Pennsylvania’s Mehmet Oz, all lost. While Trump has had a firm grip over his base, some saw him as a political albatross for the party. But instead of breaking with Trump, fearing the backlash of his base, first McCarthy and then McConnell submitted to him. They will not be in an updated version of “Profiles in Courage.”
The Democrats, by contrast, went to Biden and asked him to step down for the good of the party. This was politically risky, because if Biden hadn’t stepped down, helping apply pressure on him to do so weakened him as a candidate. But they were smart about it; the leadership went to him in private, with strategic leaks indicating the matter had not been decided, while still leaving them plausible deniability.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi demonstrated her abilities as a master politician, answering a question about the issue by asserting “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” as if he hadn’t made clear his decision to stay in the race at every turn. Democratic leaders also gave Biden the time to make the decision, but there was a limit enforced by the prospect of making their request public.
While it would have been better had Biden come to this decision earlier, so that the party could have had a legitimate contest between candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris is well-positioned to take over. Given the decision on a new candidate will be made by mostly Biden delegates, Harris would be the favorite of any conceivable selection process anyway. Some potential challengers have already endorsed her, and she already has enough delegates to secure the nomination.
Biden’s withdrawal has certainly made the Trump campaign’s job harder. They have based their campaign on Biden being too old and weak, and now Trump is the candidate dealing with the limitations of age. As a former prosecutor, Harris is well-positioned to highlight Trump’s felony convictions and legal troubles. She is also much stronger on the right to choose, which is a strong Democratic issue that Biden was ill-suited to exploit.
Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, where he rambled on about grievances, reminded us that he promises chaos and retribution. Biden’s selfless action has rejuvenated Democratic chances.
Kent James is a member of East Washington’s borough council.