US President Biden drops out of presidential race

U.S. President Joe Biden, who was expected to compete against former President Donald Trump, the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, in the presidential election in November, dropped out of the race on Sunday. President Biden has been under pressure to resign as a candidate after a devastating defeat against the former president during a debate on June 27. This is the first time that an acting U.S. president decided to give up reelection before official nomination after winning the party’s primary.

Along with the announcement that he would resign as a candidate, President Biden announced his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement for a candidate of the Democratic Party. It hasn’t been confirmed whether the vice president will be nominated or an online election between multiple candidates will be held. While Vice President Harris is still behind former President Trump in approval ratings, her gap against the former president is less than President Biden’s. If the traditional supporters of the Democratic Party, including the black and Hispanic, are united and independents concerned about the former president's election make a strategic choice, it could be a close race.

Former President Trump, who seems even more confident after a bullet of an assassin missed him during a campaign, talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discussed how to end the war as if he was already elected. The former president also revealed he proposed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un join him for the New York Yankees' game, implying that the U.S.’s relationship with North Korea would return to the top-down method. He is also threatening allies to pay ‘insurance premium.’ Things might change once a new candidate of the Democratic Party is decided. A little over 100 days are left until the results of the U.S. presidential election are decided. Until then, it is important to wisely manage the ‘Trump risk’ and ‘lame-duck risk.’