Few presidents eligible to run for re-election have turned down the opportunity as President Joe Biden did, and instead choosing to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Among the most recent presidents to step aside was Democrat Harry Truman in 1952.
“The polls were horrible. And it just looked like he was not going to be a viable candidate against whoever the Republicans put up," said Professor Emeritus Paul Beck with The Ohio State University’s political science department.
That was at the height of the Korean War and during Sen. Joseph McCarthy hunt for communists.
Truman made the call to withdraw much earlier in the election cycle than Biden. After a poor showing in the primary against a challenger, Truman dropped out of the race in March 1952. Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois was selected by the Democrats at their convention in Chicago. He lost in the general election to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
There’s also President Teddy Roosevelt. He decided not to run again in 1908 and supported Ohio Republican William Howard Taft, who won the presidency.
“I suspect also Roosevelt really didn't like the presidency, although I don't know that for sure. He much preferred not being tied down to the White House, and being able to go off on various activities in Africa or the western states," Beck said.
The most recent president to step aside before an election was Lyndon B. Johnson. The Democrat became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and then easily won the 1964 election against Republican Barry Goldwater.
But the 1968 race was different.
“The Vietnam War was raging. There were all kinds of demonstrations in the streets, particularly on college campuses, against the Vietnam War. Johnson, it appears, at least in retrospect, wanted to try to end our involvement in Vietnam. But he didn't really know how to do that," Beck said.
He ran in the New Hampshire primary, and won it. But Johnson pulled out of the race in March.
“I think Johnson saw the writing on the wall. It also, in retrospect, became pretty clear that his health was not good. And as a result of both the problems with his health, as well as things with the Vietnam War, he decided that he really wasn't up to a second term,” Beck said.
Beck said LBJ’s decision not to run was influenced by anti-war demonstrations, and pressure from his wife to step aside for his health. But he said Johnson didn’t face the type of in-party pressure to step aside like Biden.
The Democratic Party selected LBJ’s Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, to run against Republican Richard Nixon, who hadn't had much electoral success in the years following his stint as Eisenhower's vice president. It was a close race.
Tensions were high. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in the months before the election.
“Humphrey clearly had Johnson support, wins the nomination, but wins nomination in what was a very, very chaotic Democratic convention and on the streets of Chicago at the convention hall in 1968,” Beck said. "With (Chicago) Mayor Daley's police basically closeted in the spaces between buildings, waiting to confront the protesters and try to, as much as they could, thwart the protests.”
Beck said Humphrey was selected as LBJ’s vice president because he was more progressive, a champion for civil rights.
“A whole bunch, particularly younger Americans, younger progressives who were very much opposed to Lyndon Johnson and were overjoyed when he decided not to run for re-election,” Beck said.
But not everyone in the party was on board.
“There was great division within the Democratic Party, a lot of more conservative and more pro-war Democrats, wanting to see the war continue to be prosecuted,” Beck said.
In the end, Humphrey couldn’t distance himself enough from the war. Nixon won.
“I think that Johnson's withdrawal really handed the presidency to Nixon. It was a very close contest,” Beck said.
Third party candidate and segregationist George Wallace also pulled votes. But Nixon had his own appeal to voters against civil rights.
“Nixon adopted what he and others called a "southern strategy," where he openly appealed to white southerners who were opposed to the civil rights revolution in the 1960s, openly appealing to them to vote for him to end those kinds of activities on behalf of civil rights for African Americans, particularly in the South,” Beck said.
Beck said early indicators show Vice President Kamala Harris may not have some of the problems Humphrey had.
The party appears to be uniting around her quickly and the donations are coming in. A record $81 million was raised in support of Harris' campaign in the 24-hour period following Biden's announcement that he was dropping out of the race.
“The early polls are showing a higher level of excitement among young people for the Democratic ticket. Certainly a higher level of excitement among African American women for the Democratic ticket. So Harris has generated that and I would expect that excitement to last over time," Beck said.
Beck emphasized that the vote of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention is how candidates are always selected, even if the incumbent candidates are typically presumed to be the nominee before the convention.
