Is Biden’s decision not to run again rare? A look at other one-term candidates – National
Joe Bidenthe decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race This puts him on a short list of American presidents who could have run again but chose not to.
Biden announced his withdrawal on Sunday, after weeks of pressure to step down, forcing the Democratic Party to weigh the pros and cons of a new candidate. Donald Trump a few months before the elections.
“It’s just unprecedented for a party candidacy to blow up like this,” said Ryan Hurl, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.
Biden, 81, made the decision after a lackluster performance in the presidential debate that revived questions about his age and ability to lead. Republican nominee Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in history, at 78.
Biden endorses US vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. She received enough support from delegates to appear poised to become her party’s nominee.
One-term presidencies can sometimes be associated with “failure,” but Université du Québec à Montréal history professor Greg Robinson believes Biden’s legacy may have been saved by his early departure.
“I think it’s a statesmanlike act to step down now,” Robinson said. “If he had run, he would have looked awful being beaten because of his age.”
Although one-term presidencies are not uncommon, it is relatively unusual in American politics for a U.S. president not to seek re-election.
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Here are some more:
Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
Harry Truman (1884-1972), President of the United States (1945-1953), 1945.
CP Images
Truman became president in December 1945, after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman led the United States until the end of World War II and approved the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
He was re-elected in 1948 but dropped out of the presidential race in 1952 due to his low popularity.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
FILE – This August 1967 file photo shows President Lyndon B. Johnson. (AP Photo, File).
(AP Photo, File)
Johnson took power in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He won the U.S. election the following year.
In 1968, at the end of a speech on the unpopular Vietnam War, Johnson announced that he would not seek another term.
Hurl says that while current events can influence decision-making, sometimes it comes down to personal circumstances.
“It’s a mixture of individual choices and social forces that are beyond the control of any given individual,” he said.
“We won’t know how Biden would have fared if the aging problems hadn’t been so extreme.”
Unlike Biden, other one-termers, including Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) and, most recently, Donald Trump (2017-2021), have sought re-election but been defeated.
“The truth is that running for president as an incumbent is a huge advantage. And most incumbents win. Donald Trump, even though he lost in 2020, came pretty close to staying in office,” Steven Greene, a professor at North Carolina State University, told Global News.
Biden’s withdrawal means that “we’re going to have, for the first time in many decades, a series of one-term presidents here,” Green said.
The announcement also caps a tumultuous few weeks in American politics.
Hurl points to the assassination attempt on Trump and Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
“In all these shocking events, the shock of seeing a Biden almost unable to defend himself on stage during the debate was in some ways even more shocking than a assassination attempt,” he said.
— with files from Jackson Proskow
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
