American President Joe Biden has temporarily suspended campaigning after he tested positive for COVID-19, White House officials announced on Wednesday night. The announcement came after Biden earlier in the day in an interview said he would consider dropping out of the 2024 presidential race if he was diagnosed with a “medical condition.”
The Biden team was forced to cancel speaking engagements in Las Vegas at the last minute as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed that the president, who is fully vaccinated, was “experiencing mild symptoms” and would be returning to his private residence in Delaware for a period of isolation.
Biden’s temporary withdrawal from the race on medical grounds couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Democratic incumbent, who is already facing intensifying calls to stand aside from the nomination after a poor performance earlier this month debating rival Donald Trump, prompting senior Democratic officials to voice concerns that Biden was too infirm for the role.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all reportedly discussed with the president the prospect of stepping down from the nomination, ahead of next month’s Democratic convention. According to party insiders, senior democrat Nancy Pelosi is reported to have attempted to convince Biden that he had no prospect of defeating Trump.
Democratic congressmen and senators have issued stern warnings that Biden’s lacklustre performance is impacting the party at large, risking its control of Congress. Already on the back foot, the president responded with polling data that showed he would triumph over Trump in November.
Most opinion polls give the Republican nominee a solid lead in swing states, while two-thirds of Democrats polled expressed their wish that Biden would step back from the race.CNN’s Dana Bash has since aired insider accounts of the chaos enveloping the Biden campaign in the wake of Wednesday’s COVID diagnosis, with even senior aides quietly acknowledging that the race was all but lost months ago, ahead of the November 5th election.
Democratic delegates will assemble from August 19th to 22nd in Chicago for their pre-election convention. In a normal political cycle they would aim to solidify their support for Biden’s presidential bid, but the event is now widely regarded by pundits as the final opportunity for the party to find a new nominee before November’s election
