ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - In a situation that feel incredibly likely after a disastrous performance in the first presidential debate, President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he would not run for re-election in the 2024, dropping out of the presidential race and he would endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris.
"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president," said Biden in a release he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
The decision by Biden to drop out comes a little close to a month after a disastrous presidential debate at the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta between Biden and former President Donald Trump, which saw Biden struggle to answer questions and trailed off his train of thought at times.
John Hancock and Michael Kelley, hosts of Hancock and Kelley on KMOX joined Total Information A.M. Monday to discuss their initial thoughts of Biden dropping out of the 2024 race.
"I'm not surprised, I've been saying for over a year that Biden wasn't going to be the Democratic nominee, but if I'm surprised about something, I'm surprised it took so long," said Hancock. "They got a fine needle to thread here and it's not impossible, but we're in uncharted and unprecedented waters in terms of a nomination being swung open in less than a month before a party convention and I don't think anybody knows how this is going to proceed at this point."
Kelley, a longtime Democratic strategist, says he felt relief when he saw the news Biden decided to drop out and now believes Democrats now have a chance to win the 2024 election, which he believes is incredibly important.
"I think we've known since the disastrous meltdown the president had at the presidential debate that this campaign with him at the top of the ticket was unsustainable," said Kelley. "Not only (Democrats) were starting to lose ground in the presidential races, but it was trickling down the ballots to the Senate and potentially to the House of Representatives."
With Biden now of the race, Harris seems to be in prime position to be the next nominee, but it is still far from a guarantee according to Hancock.
"You got 3,000 or 4,000 of these (delegates) are party activists, grassroots people, some of them are donors all of them are free agents, they can vote for whoever they want," said Hancock. "That's a tremendous amount of power for someone that is a grassroot activist. Corralling all those folks is going to be a challenge for the Democratic establishment."
"And if somebody breaks loose, say Harris has a bad interview, and one or two them say 'I'm going to take my shot here' all they need to do is be nominated on the floor of the convention, seconded on the floor and guess what? They keep casting ballots until someone gets a majority."