President Biden Resigns From Presidential Candidate, Supports Kamala Harris To Advance For The 2024 US Presidential Election

President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris. (Twitter/@JoeBiden)

JAKARTA - United States President Joe Biden's incumbent on Sunday decided to resign as a presidential candidate for the 2024 Presidential Election, prompting Vice President Kamala Harris to run as a candidate for the Democratic Party to face Republican candidate Donald Trump.

President Biden chose to focus on completing his term of office until his term ends on January 20, 2025. This week, he is planned to deliver his speech to the people of the United States.

"Although I intend to run for re-election, I believe that in the best interests of my party and country, I must resign and only focus on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term of office," President Biden wrote on X. July 22.

The president changed his mind at the last minute, said a source familiar with the matter. The president told his allies that Saturday evening he plans to stay in competition before changing his mind on Sunday afternoon.

"At around 1:45 pm today: the president told his senior team he had changed his mind," the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Biden announced his decision on social media minutes later.

The move dramatically changed competition at the White House which had been shaken repeatedly over the past month.

In a poll, Americans have expressed widespread dissatisfaction over the possibility of a Biden-Trump rematch.

If Harris appears as a candidate, the move would be an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party: the first black and Asian-American woman to run for the White House in a country to have voted for a black president and has never voted for a female president for more than two centuries.

Democratic National Committee Speaker Jaime Harrison said Americans would soon hear from the party about the next steps and a way forward for the nomination process. This is the first time in more than half a century that a US president who is in office has released his party's candidacy.

If officially nominated, Harris (59) will be the first black woman to lead a major party ticket in US history. Former California attorney general and former US senator he ran for president but did not succeed against Biden in 2020.

"My goal is to get and win this nomination," Harris said in a statement.

"I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party and unite our nation to defeat Donald Trump," he continued.

Campaign officials Harris, allies and supporters have begun calling for the delegation's support for its candidacy ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from August 19-22, sources said.

It is known that Biden's historic move - the first president to take office to release his party nomination to be re-elected since President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War in March 1968 - left his successor less than four months to campaign.

Biden was the oldest US President to ever be elected when he defeated Trump in 2020. During the campaign, Biden described himself as a bridge to the next generation. Some people interpret him as he will serve a period, as a transitional figure who defeated Trump and brought his party back to power.