It was more than five decades ago, on March 31, 1968, that President Lyndon Johnson stunned American television viewers by announcing he wasn’t running for re-election. The news came amid growing political divides over the Vietnam War and falling approval ratings.
Since then, no incumbent president eligible to run again has stepped away from seeking a second term – until Sunday.
That day, President Joe Biden announced that he would drop out of the race, following months of gathering Democratic concerns about his age and chances of defeating Donald Trump.
Most Americans alive today have never seen such a development. Before Johnson, in February 1952, Harry Truman decided to step aside from another term he could have sought. Calvin Coolidge, James Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford Hayes and Theodore Roosevelt also declined to seek another term when eligible.
Yet no president in the modern era has dropped out of the race so close to the election, especially after winning the primaries, presidential historians and political scientists told USA TODAY.
“It’s unprecedented,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential studies scholar at the University of Virginia.
Pressure for Biden to step aside grew after a disastrous debate with his opponent, former President Trump, helped lead to his decision just 107 days before voters go to the polls. Biden’s decision comes months later in the process than the nearest 20th-century precedents.
“We've never had a candidate drop out willingly so late before,” said Shannon B. O'Brien, a University of Texas professor who studies the American presidency, who also noted the possibility it will lead to a rare open convention for Democrats.
Biden’s decision came just eight days after Trump survived a July 13 assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally, further roiling what was already one of America’s most fraught presidential elections in decades.
While circ*mstances and times differed greatly for past incumbents who stepped aside, historians note that after both Truman and Johnson decided to not to seek re-election, the opposing parties won the following presidential election.
More:As President Joe Biden steps aside, would America be ready for President Kamala Harris?
Johnson took over the presidency after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He won a full term a year later in 1964. But by 1968, the Vietnam War had fueled division in America and his popularity had plummeted.
Johnson’s wife, “Lady Bird” Johnson, told presidential historian Michael Beschloss that “he felt so torn that he wasn't sure whether he'd stay in (the) Presidential race or withdraw right down to the moment he started his Oval Office TV speech March 31, 1968,” Beschloss said Sunday on social media.
After Johnson announced he would not seek re-election, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Robert F. Kennedy emerged in a close contest for the nomination. But Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California primary, and the convention arrived with tensions running high. Protesters outside clashed with Chicago police as delegates inside nominated Humphrey. It was a choice made through the support of party leaders, and discord over the process helped cement the system of choosing candidates by primary.
Yet Johnson had stepped aside as the presidential race was in an earlier stage, not near the end of the nominating process, said Philip J. Crowley, a former professor at George Washington University and former Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. State Department.
That meant there was more time for selecting another candidate than there is now, said Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
Despite that time, Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon that fall.
The next most recent example was President Truman. He took over from Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. His ailments would lead to his death soon after. Truman won reelection in 1948 and could have run for another full term in 1952. But by then his ratings had fallen for a range of reasons including challenges of the Korean War.
On March 29, 1952, Truman made his announcement that he wouldn’t run. Instead, Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson ran and lost to Dwight Eisenhower, the celebrated World War II general.
Along with presidents Coolidge, Polk, Buchanan and Hayes, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both declined to run for a third time – long before 1951, when the 22nd Amendment added a two-term limit.
Historians say Biden’s place in history must be seen through the lens of today’s unprecedented political landscape, one rife with deep division and spiking worries about American democracy and fears the nation will slide toward autocracy.
Despite the uncertainty that Biden’s decision creates, some experts said it was a likely painful and difficult one made against Biden’s own self-interests and instincts.
“I think the country should take a moment and realize the magnitude of the decision that President Biden made for the good of his country,” Jon Meacham, the presidential historian, said on MSNBC, who said he knows Biden personally but is not a Democrat.
Still, it has left Democrats scrambling to figure out next steps ahead of their own convention. Democrats have gone through 15 brokered conventions, but only six of these have resulted in a presidential win, according to Laura Ellyn Smith, a presidential historian at University of Oxford.
“Before 2024, the significance of debates and national conventions were in question,” she said. Now, “for the first time since the tumultuous summer of 1968, America faces a Democratic convention without a candidate tested and victorious through the primary system.”
She added: “We will have to see what the Democratic convention brings.”
That convention begins in a month. Again, it will be in Chicago, and again, it will be sure to make history.
