Philly-area officials react to Biden dropping out of presidential race

President Joe Biden announced he will end his bid for reelection Sunday, ending a tumultuous second race for the White House against Donald Trump.

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president and said he plans to serve out the remainder of his term in office. In a statement, Harris said she intends to “earn and win the nomination.”

Biden’s unprecedented withdrawal drew quick reactions from around the area.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is on a short list of possible VP picks, praised Biden, calling him one of the “most consequential presidents” in modern history.

“President Biden has gotten an incredible amount done to move our country forward, defend our democracy, and protect real freedom,” Shapiro said in a post to X.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Hughes agreed with that assessment, calling the events of Sunday “bittersweet.”

“I think Joe Biden will go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history,” he told WHYY News. “Given his accomplishments, his record is really superlative, and the fact that he’s made the decision to not be able to proceed with the campaign, given his record, it’s kind of heartbreaking.”

However, Hughes said that Harris would inject new energy into the campaign among young voters and Black voters. Joe Biden won 92% of Black voters in Pennsylvania, helping him win the state and the presidency. However, he had recently been lagging with that demographic this cycle.

“Kamala Harris will meet what Joe Biden’s performance and likely exceeded by Election Day in the Black community,” he said.

Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, Bob Brady, said he was saddened about Biden dropping out of the race.

“Joe Biden’s a dear friend of mine for many, many years, but hey, look, he’s doing the right thing like he always does for the country,” the former member of Congress told WHYY News before calling Harris “a great pick.”

“I think she’ll do a great job,” Brady said.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy thanked Biden for “over 50 years of service to our grateful nation.”

In a statement, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, a coalition of labor unions representing over 150,000 workers in the Philadelphia area, said, “There has been no greater champion for American workers than Joe Biden. The scrappy kid from Scranton truly knows that when our unions are strong, our country is strong.”

The organization did not endorse a candidate for the Democratic nomination Sunday but said it was committed to defeating Trump.

U.S. Representative Andy Kim, D-Hamilton, N.J., threw his support behind Vice President Harris to replace Biden, calling her candidacy “historic.”

“Not just the opportunity to elect the first woman, the first AAPI President, and a Black woman, but to continue on the incredible progress we’ve started. The time to unify is now. The stakes are high. Let’s move forward together,” Kim, who is running for U.S. Senate, added.

U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Philadelphia, said he was “proud to be one of Joe Biden’s biggest supporters.”

Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija said he was “beyond proud and excited to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for this historic opportunity,” and thanked Biden for a “lifetime of service.”

Area Republicans were less enthused. Dave McCormick, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, posted on social media that, “There is no border crisis without Kamala Harris. There is no affordability crisis without Kamala Harris. There is no violent crime crisis in our cities without Kamala Harris. Harris has made life worse for Pennsylvanians as VP. She’d be a disaster as president.”

Some Republicans have already said they plan to take legal action to stop Democrats from bringing forward another candidate, calling the process undemocratic.

“The fact of the matter is nobody voted for Kamala Harris,” said Jim Worthington, of Newtown, chair of the Pennsylvania delegation to the RNC and a major Republican donor. “He’s anointing Kamala Harris. Who’s to say that Whitmer, Newsom and Josh Shapiro shouldn’t have had a chance to get in front of the voters and their delegates?”

Worthington also called Harris “too far left.”

“She may win California, but forget about Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” he told WHYY News. “If there was an open primary, she would’ve not been the candidate.”

T.J. Deluca, a Pennsylvania delegate to the DNC and a parliamentarian for the party, disputes the contention that the process is undemocratic, comparing it to the representative democracy that governs the country.

“There’s a rule — it says delegates elected to the national convention, pledged to a presidential candidate, shall in good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them,” he told WHYY News. “We elect people to go to Congress. Our elected officials in our state legislatures, Americans vote to have people represent them at the next level up. That’s how the Democratic Party is structured from top to bottom, from your local committee to your state committees, to the Democratic National Committee. The democratic process in the United States has never been, in our entire history, a plain, popular vote, democratic process.”

David Barrett, a professor of political science at Villanova University, also doesn’t buy the Republican criticisms of the process. A presidential scholar, Barrett has extensively studied similar situations in which Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson both dropped out of their respective races.

“There have been questions about the validity of certain processes within a convention itself, but there are ways to deal with this,” he told WHYY News. “But the challenges have always been resolved within the party and more or less according to party regulations and both on what those regulations meant. But the idea of courts intervening, I mean, I don’t see it now.”

Brady said Republicans are challenging the process because they are “scared of Harris.”

“And they have a right to be scared,” he said. “We’re going to get a chance to vote for her. We do that in the convention. We’re doing it as we speak, and they’re so nervous now that I’m sure that Trump won’t even debate her.”

The chair of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday the party is committed to a “transparent and ordinary process” to selecting the next nominee.

It’s not a given that Harris will be the nominee as delegates will still have an opportunity to vote for other candidates. However, Mustafa Rashad, a local political consultant, said that a Harris nomination comes with significant advantages.

“She’s obviously thoroughly vetted and probably the only candidate at the national stage that can go and assume his campaign apparatus in a way that no one else could,” he said. “It won’t take long to find out if the Democratic establishment is going to get behind her, so I think we’re going to find out in the next day or so.”

WHYY News will have coverage of the DNC in Chicago Aug. 19–22. Subscribe to “The Swing,” WHYY News’ politics newsletter, to stay on top of all the headlines this election cycle.