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Biden steps down: In the history of the US presidential elections, there has never been a sitting president who polled through all the primaries and pulled out right before the party convention where the final nominee was officially announced US President Joe Biden pulled out of the presidential race at the very last minute amid calls by several Democrats to exit. People kept pointing out how he was too old to lead the country for another four years, with a few saying he might not be mentally fit as well. Several feared that Donald Trump appears to be a stronger contestant and is leading the race to the White House. Multiple polls also showed that Trump is leading Biden. So when has such a thing happened in US politics in the past? The answer is, never. While there have been cases of incumbent presidents deciding not to continue with their campaigns, nothing similar to Biden's case has ever happened. There has never been an election when a contestant has pulled out of the race so close to the elections, and when he looked almost certain to be the party nominee. None of the earlier presidents were called out as being mentally unfit or too old, and so Biden's case is unprecedented. Democrats Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson became presidents after the deaths of current presidents at the time and later went on to win the elections for their next tenures. But they weren't able to win their party’s nomination in 1952 and 1968, respectively. Truman was vice president in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration and assumed the presidency after Roosevelt died in 1945. He later won the 1948 presidential elections, beating Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey to begin his own full term. In 1945, after he took over as president, he was informed about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. He authorised the use of the bomb in the war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also Read: Joe Biden finally bows to pressure, withdraws from US presidential race In the 1952 elections, allegations of rampant corruption in his administration made things terrible for the Democrats. He received a thrashing in the New Hampshire primary and exited the presidential race soon after. Similarly, Johnson, who took over after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The next year he won a full presidency in a landslide. But he became widely unpopular amid the Vietnam War and other domestic issues. Johnson had a below-average showing in the New Hampshire primary during the 1968 election, after which he started to lose control of his party and became unpopular. He decided to pull out of the race and made the announcement in a televised address from the White House. Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge also assumed presidencies after an assassination or death, won their own terms later but chose not to run for another term. Roosevelt took over after President William McKinley's assassination in 1901 after just six months in office. He is the youngest person to become president in the US. He also won the next term, but in 1908, decided not to run for another term. With Coolidge, after President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack in 1923, he ascended to the top position. In 1924, he won a full term. But during his term at the White House, he suffered a tragedy when his son died playing tennis on the lawns. He decided not to run for president in 1928 and informed reporters a year before the elections. With Biden, he never really lost the support of the Democrats for the larger part of the campaign. But the difference between Truman and Johnson, and Biden is that questions were never raised on the former two's mental competence and the ability to lead the country. With Biden, the main problem is his age, the several gaffes that have been highlighted and the final nail in the coffin - his performance at the presidential debate where he looked out of sorts and often lost his train of thought. Following Truman and Johnson dropping out of the race, things got messy for the Democrats. Republicans, led by Dwight Eisenhower, won the White House in 1952, while Republican Richard Nixon won the 1968 elections. Meanwhile, after Roosevelt and Coolidge exited the race, the Republicans won back the White House in the elections that followed. So history, in the current scenario, isn't favouring the Dems. Anamica Singh started her career as a sports journalist and then moved on to writing on entertainment, news and lifestyle. She dabbles in copy editing, vid None
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