Biden faces growing calls to step aside. These presidents didn’t seek reelection

President Joe Biden now faces growing pressure to step aside as the Democratic nominee for president — a momentous move that would not be without precedent.

Following what many have called his poor performance in the June 27 presidential debate, a number of organizations and individuals have called on Biden, 81, to throw in the towel, including the editorial board of the New York Times, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and veteran strategist James Carville.

Multiple Democratic members of Congress have also privately expressed that they want Biden to exit the race, according to CNN. And on July 2, Texas. Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first to break ranks and publicly call on the president to stand down.

“I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw,” Doggett said, according to the Associated Press.

Should Biden step aside as the nominee, he would follow in the footsteps of two other Democratic presidents in the modern era: Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson.

Both of these presidents share a number of similarities with Biden, including low approval ratings, entanglements in foreign wars and influential spouses, historians told McClatchy News. And, like Biden, both men appeared to be heading toward defeat.

Harry Truman

Near the end of his first full term in 1952, President Harry Truman’s reelection prospects were looking dire.

Like Biden, his approval ratings were low, dwindling in the 20s and 30s, Taylor Stoermer, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, told McClatchy News.

A number of factors had soured the public’s view of him, including accusations of corruption in his administration, Stoermer said, adding that “the Korean war was absolutely hammering him, and even his own party was splintering over anti-communism.”

“Most Democratic leaders wanted him to step aside,” Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, told McClatchy News.

Making matters worse was that the Republican nominee, Dwight Eisenhower — who commanded the allied forces in Europe during World War II — was viewed as difficult, if not impossible, to defeat, Stoermer said.

“I think Truman kind of saw he would get pasted,” Stoermer said.

But, unlike Biden — who views his opponent, former President Donald Trump, as an existential threat to democracy — Truman had great respect for Eisenhower, Thomas Balcerski, a presidential historian at Eastern Connecticut State University, told McClatchy News.

“Truman actually wrote Eisenhower saying he would step aside in 1948 if Eisenhower would agree to run as president as a Democrat,” Balcerski said.

And in 1952, he believed that if Eisenhower were to win, it would “not be catastrophic for the nation,” Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian at the Southern Methodist University, told McClatchy News.

Truman, who was in office when the amendment limiting presidents to two terms was passed, was also hesitant to serve another term given he had already been president since Roosevelt’s death in 1945, Balcerski said.

“He really did not think it would be appropriate for him to repeat what FDR did by effectively having a third term,” Balcerski said.

Additionally, his wife, Bess Truman, despised politics and spent as little time in Washington, D.C., as possible — which could have swayed his decision to step down.

“While there’s no clear evidence of her involvement in his decision making, there’s so much evidence of her involvement in every other aspect,” Stoermer said. “You just can’t discount the authority that Bess Truman wielded in that White House.”

Ultimately, after losing the New Hampshire primary in March, Truman announced he would not seek a second term.

This led to a brokered Democratic convention in which Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was made the nominee. He then lost the election to Eisenhower.

Lyndon Johnson

Sixteen years later, in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson found himself in a similarly unenviable position gearing up for the election.

Like Truman and Biden, he was plagued by low approval ratings and facing domestic opposition to his handling of a foreign war, Stoermer said.

“He was losing younger progressives over Vietnam the way Biden’s hemorrhaging younger progressives over Gaza,” Stoermer said. “Not being able to manage a fracturing Democratic coalition against mostly an international backdrop is something that seems fairly consistent with all of them.”

Johnson — who was set to face off against Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee — “was almost certainly heading for a loss,” Kazin said.

He had privately been considering stepping aside for months, and even had a draft announcement prepared for the 1967 State of the Union address, Stoermer said.

Factoring into his desire to step aside was his heart condition, which was “getting more serious because of the stress put on by the war,” Stoermer said. He also came to believe “he was no longer the man for the moment,” and that someone else would be better suited to prosecute and end the Vietnam war.

His family was undoubtedly involved in the decision-making process, Balcerski said.

His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, was “definitely her husband’s chief confidant and advocate,” Balcerski said. He noted there are parallels between her and Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, who is reportedly deeply involved in the president’s reelection campaign.

“There was no single greater influence on LBJ than Lady Bird,” Stoermer said. “And she was counseling him against running more than a year before the race started,” partly due to his failing health.

“These decisions ended up being intensely personal even though they’re driven by political factors,” Stoermer said. “And because they’re personal, they require someone who is intensely important on a personal level to play any kind of role.”

Ultimately, in March, after an underwhelming victory in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson made a televised address to the nation, announcing he was withdrawing from the race.

“With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office,” Johnson said. “Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

Six months later, after the assassination of Sen. Bobby Kennedy — who was campaigning for the Democratic nomination — Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won the Democratic nomination at the convention in Chicago. He then lost the election to Nixon.

This story was originally published July 3, 2024 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Biden faces growing calls to step aside. These presidents didn’t seek reelection."