From Oluwaseun Akingboye, Bureau Chief, U.S. & North America

• Harris vows to win nomination, defeat Trump
• Trump: Biden was not fit to run, Harris easier to defeat
• Biden must resign as president immediately – House Speaker
• Clintons, Obama, Pelosi praise Biden’s decision

With less than four months to the presidential election in the United States, the tide changed yesterday when President Joe Biden stepped down from the race after enduring weeks of mounting pressures and galloping slide in ratings since he sparred with his challenger, former President Donald Trump in a debate.

After pulling out of the anticipated rematch of 2020 election, Biden also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as Democratic presidential nominee.

In a statement yesterday, he said it was his intention to seek re-election as president, but his decision to quit the race was in the interest of his party and country.

Biden said: “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. 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”.

Harris praised Biden’s ‘patriotic’ decision not to seek reelection and vowed to win the Democratic nomination and defeat Trump. “With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” she said in a statement.

“I am honoured to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump.”

But in a swift response, Trump said Biden was never fit to run and “is certainly not fit to serve as president.

“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was! … We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. Make America Great Again!” Trump posted on his Truth Social network shortly after Biden’s announcement.

In his first reaction to Biden’s announcement, Trump, in an interview with the CNN network, said he thinks Harris would be easier to defeat in the election.

Also publicly, Trump campaign advisers and allies have been telling reporters they are not worried about facing Harris because they can simply tie her to Biden’s record in office, particularly on immigration and inflation.

They say they will try to portray Harris, and any of the other candidates being suggested as alternatives for the Democrats, as being to the left of Biden on various policies.

The campaign team lashed into Vice President Harris, saying she would be “even worse” than the outgoing leader.

“Harris will be even worse for the people of our nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two,” the campaign said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party will hold a “transparent and orderly” process to pick a new nominee, the party chair said after Biden’s move. “In the coming days, the party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Trump in November,” chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement praising Biden.

Trump’s odds to win the Oval Office are now at -156 following Biden’s decision to drop out – meaning odds makers view him as being 61 per cent likely to surface as the next president come November. It stood as a slight dip from a day ago when the president’s odds were pegged at 64 per cent, suggesting some uncertainty as Democrats mull a new candidate.

In contrast, Biden’s odds plummeted to essentially zero, while Harris saw her odds rise to +163. That’s up from the +900 seen just days ago on July 16, and way up from back in June, before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, when her chances were at an even lower. This means oddsmakers have pegged her as being 12 times more likely at pulling of a win as she was a month ago, when handicappers saw Biden’s odds as around 50-50.

Former president Bill Clinton and ex-secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, praised Biden’s decision to abandon his White House reelection bid on Sunday, and threw their support behind Harris to take up the baton.

Lauding Biden’s “extraordinary career of service,” the Clintons said in a joint statement that they were “honoured” to join him in endorsing Harris as the Democratic nominee “and will do whatever we can to support her. Nothing has made us more worried for our country than the threat posed by a second Trump term. He has promised to be a dictator on day one,” they continued.

The former Democratic House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, also hailed Biden over the move, describing him as “one of the most consequential Presidents in American history”.

Biden is “a patriotic American who has always put our country first. His legacy of vision, values and leadership make him one of the most consequential Presidents in American history,” Pelosi said in a statement, expressing her “love and gratitude” to him.

Also, former President Barack Obama praised Biden’s decision to drop out of the White House race on Sunday, saying it was a testament to the U.S. leader’s “love of country” — but warned of “uncharted waters” ahead of the November 5 election.

Biden had “every right” to run for reelection, the former president said in a statement, lauding the 81-year-old’s record and calling him a “patriot of the highest order. We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” he continued.

However, the Speaker has said Biden must resign as president “immediately.” The top Republican in Congress said after the US president announced he was abandoning his bid to retake the White House amid intense pressure over his age.

“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson in a statement.

The end finally came shortly after Biden was last week diagnosed with COVID-19, forcing him off the campaign trail and into isolation in Rehoboth Beach.

Biden’s decision to pull out also caps a tense and chaotic period in the U.S. election, with Trump having survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on July 13.

Biden joins a small club of U.S. presidents who have decided to throw in the towel after just one term, with the last being Lyndon Johnson in 1968 — a year also marked by political turmoil and violence. Johnson’s replacement as nominee, then-vice president Hubert Humphrey, went on to lose heavily to Richard Nixon.

But Democrats are counting on Harris to fare better, and hoping that she can prevent convicted felon Trump from making a sensational comeback to the Oval Office.

In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has reportedly been quietly carrying out a head-to-head survey of voters measuring how she matched up against Trump.

While Harris struggled to make an impact in her first years in the White House, she has emerged in the last year as a strong performer on the campaign trail on key messages such as abortion rights.

The former prosecutor has also made much of her life story as the first woman in U.S. history to hold the vice presidency, as well as the first person of Black and South Asian origin.

Barring opposition from her party, Harris is now set to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19 in what promises to be a dramatic moment — and a heartrending one for Biden.