President Joe Biden said Sunday he is ending his bid for reelection amid intense pressure from Democratic leaders sounding the alarm that his path to beat former President Donald Trump in November had vanished.

The president’s historic withdrawal throws the 2024 race − already roiled by a shocking attempt on Trump’s life − into uncertain territory, with Vice President Kamala Harris widely seen as the Democrat most likely to take Biden’s place atop the party’s ticket.

Biden made the announcement from his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he’s self-isolated since testing positive for COVID-19 Thursday night.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a letter addressed to Americans.

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

Biden quickly endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee in a separate statement on X. He said he would speak to the nation later this week to provide more details about his decision.

It marks an extraordinary turn for Biden, who for three weeks remained defiant in the face of growing calls from Democratic lawmakers that he withdraw after a disastrous June 27 debate with Trump raised scrutiny over the president’s mental fitness.

In his statement, Biden reflected fondly on his four years in office, saying the U.S. has built the “strongest economy in the world” while touting efforts to lower prescription drug prices, expand health care, tackle climate change and appointing the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The decision upends the 2024 election less than 110 days before Election Day, with Democratic National Committee members now tasked with choosing an alternative nominee to take on Trump, whose polling lead has swelled while Democrats have fought internally.

Biden’s departure will soon mean the end of a five-decade career in Washington that began in 1972 with an upset victory for U.S. Senate in Delaware. He served as a senator for 36 years, then as Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017. Biden returned to public life to run against Trump in the 2020 presidential election. He framed the race as a “battle for the soul of the nation” and defeated Trump 51%-47% in the popular vote.

-usatoday.com