Joe Biden drops out of presidential race: What it means for Michigan

• President Joe Biden ends presidential reelection bid, endorses Kamala Harris to replace him on the Democratic ticket
• Decision comes after weeks of speculation, pressure from prominent Democrats to step aside over concerns about his fitness for office 
• Michigan officials react to the historic announcement, which reshapes the presidential race and raises potential for a Democratic convention fight

LANSING — President Joe Biden announced Sunday afternoon he would not seek reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on the Democratic ticket against Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

Biden announced the decision in a letter posted on social media, calling his tenure in the White House “the greatest honor” of his life. 

“And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he wrote. 

Related: Top Michigan Dems back Kamala Harris for president. Could Gretchen Whitmer be VP?

Biden’s announcement came weeks before the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to begin Aug. 19 in Chicago, and a week after telling supporters in Detroit that he planned to remain in the race.

In a separate post on social media, Biden said selecting Harris as his running mate was “the best decision” he’d made. 

“I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he wrote. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

Following Biden’s lead, some Michigan elected officials already began to coalesce around Harris as the nominee, including Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids; Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint and Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham.

“Let's unite as a country behind Vice President Kamala Harris and rise victorious over extremism this November,” Scholten wrote in a statement.

Calls for Biden to leave the race began in earnest after a disastrous June 27 debate against Trump in which the incumbent president gave halting and meandering answers.

In the weeks that followed, a smattering of dissenting voices grew into a coordinated pressure campaign even as key allies like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer stood behind the president. Biden continued to slip in polls against Trump and consensus grew that he could not defeat Trump come November. 

Scholten was the only Democratic member of Michigan’s congressional delegation to publicly call for Biden to step aside, while Stevens had staunchly defended him. Trump held a rally in Scholten’s district Saturday afternoon.

If Democrats don’t heed Biden’s call to rally around Harris, the coming weeks could produce a last-minute scramble to select a new nominee to face Trump in November.

And if Harris is the nominee, she'll need a running mate.

Biden won Michigan’s Democratic primary on Feb. 27 with 81% of the vote, receiving 115 out of 117 delegates. Those delegates, along with pledged Biden delegates from other states, will now be unbound and free to select another candidate on the convention floor.

While Whitmer’s name has appeared consistently among lists of possible replacement candidates, she has steadfastly denied any interest in replacing Biden and said she would not seek the office even if Biden dropped out.

Whitmer reacts

In a statement reacting to the news, Whitmer called Biden a “a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump,”  and said his work as president “will go down in history.”

“My job in this election will remain the same,” she wrote. “Doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan.”

Other Michigan politicians quickly offered reactions to a decision that had taken on an air of inevitability in recent days.

“This is a selfless decision that the country will recognize for the rest of our history,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said in a post online. “And I know which side I’m on.”

State Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren, wrote on X that she was “stunned that it had to come down to this” but respected Biden’s decisions

“I can't imagine it was easy at all,” she wrote.

Some Michigan Republicans, such as Senate minority leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, alleged a “cover up of Biden’s diminished capacity” and said ending his campaign was not enough.

“Biden must resign IMMEDIATELY,” Nesbitt wrote on X. “Otherwise, the 25th amendment must be invoked. If you can’t campaign, you cannot be commander in chief.”

Trump weighed in on his website Truth Social, writing: “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was!”

He didn’t address the prospect of facing Harris or another candidate in November.

Political consultant Dennis Lennox told Bridge in an interview, “As a Republican, I want Joe Biden to be the nominee.” Having him off the ticket, Lennox added, “is the only way for Democrats to salvage this election.”

“Frankly, depending on who they nominate, that person may not win, but they might at least hemorrhage some of the losses in some of these toss-up congressional races or toss-up senatorial races,” he said, noting Democrats’ desire to retain control of state government and hold congressional seats.

Uncharted territory

Biden’s downward trend in key battleground states — an Epic-MRA poll released Sunday by the Detroit Free Press had Biden 7 percentage points below Trump in Michigan — means the Democratic nominee will be tasked with reversing the bleeding.

Dave Dulio, a political science professor at Oakland University, said a new candidate will be “a net positive, because it gives (Democrats) a chance.”

“But it could quickly become a net negative depending on who the nominee is going to be,” he added.

Harris would be the logical replacement, Dulio said, but noted there’s also contenders in Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Whitmer — Democrats whose names have come up in recent months as alternatives to a Biden-Harris ticket.

That said, Dulio noted Biden’s endorsement of Harris was “significant” and that the “jockeying might now be for the VP slot” rather than the presidency. 

Political consultant Adrian Hemond saw an unforced error from Democrats, noting this “should have been handled two years ago.” 

“This was avoidable,” he said. “He’s an old man. He was an old man when he got elected — any reasonable person with a candidate that old, a president that old, would realize that you were at high water.”

Biden had long resisted the notion he should not seek reelection or entertain a Democratic primary, at one point saying he’d only step down “if the Lord Almighty came down and said: ‘Joe, get out of the race’.” 

Hemond added he couldn’t see anyone other than Harris taking the presidential nomination, mostly because “the money’s all in the Biden-Harris campaign account” and “no other Democrat has close to as much money to go run for president.”