President Joe Biden acceded to an intense Democratic pressure campaign to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race on Sunday, capping a career as a loyal and often fierce partisan abandoned by his party.
Biden had hoped to make his reelection campaign a referendum on former President Donald Trump, a strategy that appeared to work well enough in the 2022 midterm elections. But as the race increasingly turned on Biden himself — his age, fitness to serve, and record as president — most Democrats concluded he could not win. Biden never recovered from his June 27 debate with Trump, which his campaign pushed for and was largely conducted on their terms.
Democrats will now celebrate Biden as someone who put the country and party above his own political ambitions, while Republicans will question his ability to remain in office through January if he is unable to continue his reelection campaign.
Biden won in 2020 as a candidate who would restore normalcy after a tumultuous Trump term …