US President Joe Biden’s name won’t appear on the ballot Tuesday, but the stakes are high for the 81-year-old president and his legacy as he waits to see whether the country will send his predecessor or chosen successor to the White House next year.
The president has kept a relatively low profile in recent days and is expected to do the same today. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will watch the election results from the residence of the White House with long-time aides and senior White House staff, a White House official said. Biden, who has no public events on his schedule, is expected to receive regular updates as races play out across the country.
Today’s election looks far different than what the Bidens envisioned a few months prior as he hoped voters would elect him to a second term in the White House — and the result could help determine how the president is remembered.
Biden’s team has felt his quick endorsement of Harris after dropping out the race helped set the path for the party to quickly coalesce around her candidacy. A Harris win would keep Donald Trump, whose divisive presidency is what drove Biden to run in the 2020 race, from returning to the White House. But a Harris loss could prompt a round of questions within the party over whether Biden clung to his candidacy for too long and jeopardized Democrats’ chances.
“We’ve made a lot of progress, and Kamala will build on that progress,” Biden said at a carpenter’s union hall in Scranton on Saturday. “We’ve asked a lot of each other, unions and I – unions and me. And I ask you one more thing. I’m asking you – for your support for Kamala and for Tim Walz. I’m not just asking it for me. I mean, I’m going to be gone.”
Even as he’s been cast to the sidelines, Biden has continued to warn of what a second Trump presidency could hold for the country. And the White House has worked to protect some of his key accomplishments in the event Trump were to win and seek to undo many parts of the president’s legacy.
“I have vast disagreements with Trump and his personality,” Biden said Saturday. “What will happen? What will happen if you trade in my administration for his?”
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
