President Biden’s Atlanta debate performance sent campaign spiraling

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Despite widespread speculation that such a decision was imminent, President Joe Biden’s announcement he is ending his 2024 reelection bid is still sending shockwaves throughout the nation’s political spectrum — particularly in Georgia, which propelled him to the Oval Office four years ago.

Biden’s announcement came Sunday, only weeks before the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and just days after Republicans solidified their support of former President Donald Trump at the GOP convention in Milwaukee.

Biden also ended his reelection bid despite a recent letter from several state Democratic party chairs, including U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, urging him to stay in the race.

“We write as the chairs of the Democratic state parties in the seven states that tipped the 2020 election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—and which will decide which presidential ticket reaches 270 electoral college votes in 2024.We know how to win elections in our states,” the letter said. “And we know that Democrats can and will win up and down the ballot, from President Biden and Vice President Harris down to state legislative candidates in toss-up seats to school board races. The key ingredient is something that is up to all of us: focus.”

Besides Williams, who chairs Georgia’s Democratic Party, the letter was signed by the state party chairs from Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

After Trump’s keynote speech on the RNC’s final night, Biden appealed for party unity to take on Trump. He also worked to hold off pressure from Democrats at the highest levels for him to bow out of the 2024 election to make way for a new nominee and avoid widespread losses.

But on Sunday, Biden posted this announcement on social media. Later, in another social media post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to become the 47th president of the United States.

Eventually, Biden bowed to tremendous pressure from within his own party, a downfall that began after his disastrous debate performance — at least, for Democrats — against Trump in Atlanta.

During the debate, Biden often appeared confused and disoriented and had trouble completing thoughts and sentences.

The following weeks saw Biden hold a major news conference; conduct two national network interviews and several others; make a national TV appearance after an attempted assassination against Trump and go into self-isolation after a COVID-19 diagnosis.

Biden is the first sitting president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 to end his reelection bid, and the first in U.S. history to end his reelection campaign after winning virtually all of his party’s primaries.

Biden has strong Georgia connections:

• In 2020, he became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry Georgia — or any other deep Southern state — in a presidential election;
• Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is a strong Biden supporter, as is Williams, the Atlanta congresswoman who now holds the late John Lewis’ former seat;

• Former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is a campaign adviser;

• Biden delivered the 2024 Morehouse College commencement address.

Georgia Tea Party Chair Debbie Dooley said, “If Joe Biden is so mentally incapacitated that he can’t continue his Presidential Campaign, he needs to also step down as President or be REMOVED ASAP. As President, he has made America a laughingstock to the world. No way this man needs to be in charge of the nuclear codes, directing policy, etc.”

Had Biden stayed in the race, he and Trump would have been the first two presidential candidates to have faced each other in consecutive elections since 1956, when GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower again defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson in a repeat of the 1952 election.

This story is developing.

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