Foreign Policy Speech & NBC Nightly News - New York, NY - January 7, 2020
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My fellow Americans:
I've changed my mind. With a heavy heart, I am announcing that I will not seek or accept the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 2024.
The poll numbers indicate that I would be a burden on the party's national ticket next year and would also have problematic effects on many down-ballot races. It's time to face grim political realities -- however unfortunate they may be.
While I appreciate the loyalty of so many Democrats in Congress who would like to run for the 2024 presidential nomination but would not consider running against me, I now realize that my insistence on seeking re-election has had important negative effects. And the longer I delay in announcing a change of course, the less time they'll have to build their own national campaigns.
The specter of a second Donald Trump presidency is just too cataclysmic to allow any personal political ambition on my part to serve as an enabler to that fascistic demagogue.
I must acknowledge the fact that my capacities to defeat Trump are greatly diminished -- perhaps first and foremost because, seeking re-election, I would be representing a status quo that so many Americans are now telling pollsters they believe is on the wrong track. I have come to question the claims of my friends and boosters that I'm best positioned to defeat Trump in 2024 because I did so in 2020. To be frank, that's malarky.
I won in 2020 largely due to big turnouts from African Americans and young people, voting for me in lopsided numbers. But, sadly, since then my support among black voters has dropped, and more than 90 percent of young Democrats told pollsters last summer that they wanted a Democratic nominee other than me.
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