An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 elec­tion race for the White House. The de­ci­sion on Sun­day comes af­ter es­ca­lat­ing pres­sure from Biden’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic al­lies to step aside fol­low­ing a dis­as­trous de­bate on June 27 with Don­ald Trump that raised doubts about his fit­ness for of­fice just four months be­fore the elec­tion.

Biden en­dorsed Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris to take on Trump and en­cour­aged his par­ty to unite be­hind her. He will serve the re­main­der of his term in of­fice, which ends in Jan­u­ary 2025.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in a Face­book post, com­mend­ed Biden for his “bold and coura­geous de­ci­sion” and wished him a long and healthy re­tire­ment. Con­cern­ing Biden’s en­dorse­ment of Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris, Dr Row­ley said the out­come of this will al­ways be a mat­ter for the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and he has every con­fi­dence that they will be guid­ed to make wise and sen­si­ble de­ci­sions.  

“I have been for­tu­nate to have been ex­posed to and worked with Pres­i­dent Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris. They are both out­stand­ing­ly pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens of their coun­try, and we in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic T&T can do no more than wish them well as they go for­ward in­to a vig­or­ous cam­paign which we hope will be peace­ful and wor­thy of the great na­tion of the Unit­ed States,” the PM added. 

Weigh­ing in on this new de­vel­op­ment was po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, who told Guardian Me­dia that Biden step­ping down gives De­moc­rats a fight­ing chance in the race against Trump.

“What it tells us now by pulling out is that he has now giv­en the par­ty the op­tion to se­lect a can­di­date who the par­ty may very well feel more con­fi­dent about. That per­son can take on Trump in the elec­tion. Now that we know who the Re­pub­li­can can­di­date is and who the run­ning mate is, once we know that, we are sure the De­moc­rats will try to get a strong enough can­di­date that would be able to chal­lenge Trump in the days ahead,” Ra­goonath said.

He al­so not­ed that this move by Biden is a breath of fresh air for the De­moc­rats. “Amongst the men on the streets, they had lost con­fi­dence that Biden would have been able to sur­vive the en­tire term,” he said.

Al­so speak­ing on this de­vel­op­ment was po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James, who said this move by Biden was not sur­pris­ing, es­pe­cial­ly with the De­moc­rats call­ing for him to step down. “Ini­tial­ly, he thought he was good enough to hold on. He thought he had enough sup­port. And that’s be­cause he thought that he was the best can­di­date to win against Don­ald Trump.

“But the tidal wave, as I said, was get­ting big­ger and big­ger, to the ex­tent that he could not fight against that wave any­more be­cause he was full of self-be­lief up to this point. Now, they have lots of peo­ple that they can choose, such as Ka­mala Har­ris,” James point­ed out.

How­ev­er, he said he does not know if the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, in its ma­jor­i­ty, will go for her. “I don’t know that the Amer­i­can pub­lic knows her very well. And in par­tic­u­lar, I don’t know if the De­moc­rats them­selves like her or know her suf­fi­cient­ly. So, it’s not as if it’s easy now to re­place Joe Biden. It’s far eas­i­er to pick Don­ald Trump as the nom­i­nee, the pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee,” James said.

He not­ed that there may al­so be a shift from the De­moc­rats in terms of their po­lit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy, and Trump is ap­peal­ing to the tra­di­tion­al val­ues of lots of Amer­i­cans.

Judy Brig­gs, a Trinida­di­an who is a res­i­dent of Flori­da, said she was throw­ing her sup­port be­hind Har­ris as she is very in­tel­li­gent and she can put the US on the right track.

John Heath, who lives in Brook­lyn, New York, said, “It is about time a woman be in charge of the US, and I have great con­fi­dence in Har­ris.”