WASHINGTON—In his inaugural address as he took over from Donald Trump , President Biden said “democracy has prevailed.” Nearly four years later voters rebuked his tenure and delivered the White House back to Trump , a leader whom Biden reviles.
The election results tarnish Biden’s legacy, revealing that his agenda didn’t resonate with voters, and repudiating his efforts to unify the country and heal the “soul of America.”
On Thursday at the White House, Biden hit those notes again as he pledged to peacefully transfer power to Trump after a divisive election that saw his endorsed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris , lose decisively.
“The struggle for the soul of America since our very founding has always been an ongoing debate and is still vital today,” said Biden, speaking from the Rose Garden as his staff watched. He later added: “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. We lost this battle. The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up.”
As Biden delivered his speech, his top aides looked on and the mood was somber, with some hugging each other.
Harris’s sweeping election loss raises fresh questions about why Biden decided to seek re-election at age 80 after initially pitching himself as a “bridge” to a new generation and, more recently, why it took him three weeks to drop his bid after an abysmal June debate . It relegates a presidency he believed would be transformative to a mere interruption in Trump’s tenure in power.
“This was all born out of the selfishness of not considering the party and not considering the damage that could be caused by allowing Trump to have another opportunity to get the presidency,” said Tim Ryan , a Democrat and former Ohio congressman.
He blamed Biden’s inner circle for what he called “the highest amount of political malpractice” for letting him run again despite “knowing he could not articulate a message.”
Biden now joins former President Jimmy Carter in a small club of Democratic presidents who have only served a single term. Carter’s 1980 loss to Republican Ronald Reagan made him a pariah in the Democratic Party, though he rehabilitated his reputation during his four-decade-long post-presidency. Biden, who turns 82 this month, hasn’t yet laid out how he plans to spend his time after office.
It will also complicate fundraising for Biden’s postpresidential projects, including a library. Some Democratic donors and their advisers have said they wouldn’t make a decision about giving money until election results were clear, with a Harris victory a big factor in deciding how involved they want to become.
And, on a more personal note, it raises questions about how his family will fare: Republicans have long accused the president and his relatives of profiting from his career in public service, though they have never uncovered evidence of illegal activity. Biden and his family have denied wrongdoing and have accused Republicans of pursuing investigations for political purposes. The Justice Department under Trump could reopen these questions, which at the least would trigger a new round of legal headaches.
Separately, in mid-December, Biden’s son Hunter is due to be sentenced on federal gun charges in a Delaware courthouse and on different federal tax charges a few days later in California. Biden has said he won’t pardon his son or commute his sentence, but some allies expect him to do so, especially if his only living son gets prison time.
“He’s just going to get dumped on from all quarters,” said Douglas Brinkley , a presidential historian. He added that blame will also go to “Biden’s team who were covering up his health and refused to let others have a crack” at running for president in a real primary contest.
Biden, in 2021, inherited a divided country in the throes of a pandemic that caused more than 1.2 million deaths and disrupted American life as governments mandated that schools and businesses shut down. As the health threats receded, the country endured once-in-a-generation inflation and saw record illegal crossings at the southern border, two issues that Trump’s campaign hammered relentlessly.
The chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan dented Biden’s approval ratings, and called into question a central tenet of his appeal: His competence at managing affairs of state.
With narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress, Biden, a former longtime Delaware senator, achieved early legislative successes, passing stimulus funding; securing new funding for roads, bridges and high-speed internet ; creating grants to attract semiconductor manufacturing and passing incentives to decarbonize the economy and lower healthcare costs.
Biden referenced that legislation on Thursday. “Don’t forget all that we accomplished. It’s been an historic presidency, not because I’m president—because [of] what we’ve done.”
The White House struggled to convince Americans that his accomplishments helped their day-to-day life, in part because Biden’s decline made it increasingly difficult for him to communicate effectively to the American people. Trump has said that he will try to undo much of Biden’s agenda, though he will need Congress’s cooperation to completely erase it and some Biden-signed bills now have GOP supporters.
Biden ignored signs that voters wanted him to relinquish power. When the president announced in April 2023 that he would seek another term, 70% of voters, including 51% of Democrats, didn’t want another Biden candidacy, with about half of that group citing his age as a major reason, according to an NBC survey .
Since dropping out, Biden has struggled to articulate why, in 2022, he decided to run for office again, suggesting that there was never much of a discussion about it. “When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president,” Biden said in an August interview with CBS News. “But things got moving so quickly it didn’t happen.”
U.S. President Joe Biden walks on the day of delivering remarks on the 2024 election results and the upcoming presidential transition of power, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Some Democrats are now questioning their 2024 primary process, which Biden’s allies rejiggered to minimize resistance as Biden sought a second term. The rules favored South Carolina, whose votes backed Biden, at the expense of Iowa and New Hampshire, whose voters have traditionally been skeptical of him.
The president refused to participate in any debates with primary challengers, further diminishing the process, and preventing Democrats from seeing for themselves how Biden handled spontaneous exchanges in a high-stress setting. The only substantive challenger was Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who was seen as a rising star in the party when he decided to take on Biden. The Democratic establishment closed ranks and shunned him for taking on their leader.
Biden sewed up the nomination earlier than any Democratic candidate in modern history. “It started feeling like there was not a democratic process going on,” said Brinkley.
In the second two years of his presidency, the White House turned to implementing Biden’s agenda but didn’t launch new bold ideas.
As the term went on, the White House strongly disputed any reports that Biden was slipping—disputing that the octogenarian president was slowing down even as those who met with him behind closed doors became alarmed by his blunted acuity.
After the late June presidential debate against Trump, where the president paused for uncomfortable periods, failed to land attacks on his opponent and struggled to complete his sentences, his team sought to paint his halting performance as an aberration. “He is as sharp as ever,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre days after his debate performance. Biden is “sharper than ever,” said Adrienne Elrod, a campaign spokeswoman, shortly after the debate.
It took Biden and his team three weeks to decide to drop his re-election bid. A quicker exit, some Democrats have said, would have given Harris precious time to build her campaign.
A major piece of Biden’s argument against Trump over the past four years was to call out what Democrats viewed as his autocratic instincts. But on Tuesday, Biden de-emphasized those concerns. “The American experiment endures,” Biden said. “We’re going to be OK. We need to stay engaged.”
Write to Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com
