Bernie Sanders, the US senator from Vermont, has announced that he is dropping out of the race to become the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party to take on President Donald Trump in November.
Sanders made the announcement on Wednesday. The withdrawal of Sanders now means that Joe Biden, who served as vice president under Barack Obama, is assured of becoming the party’s nominee.
This was Sanders’s second run. He also failed to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2016, when he lost out to former First Lady, Hillary Clinton.
In the US system, each of the major political parties (the Democrats and Republicans) holds elections – called primaries – in each state to allow people to select a presidential nominee. Delegates are awarded to a candidate according to how well he or she does in a particular state.
Although Sanders had done well in early primaries, Biden soon caught up, following a resounding win in South Carolina and soon had a significant lead in terms of delegates over Sanders.
The race between Biden and Trump is likely to be tight, with both men having significant weaknesses. Biden is nearly 80 and some have argued that his cognitive functions have declined significantly in recent years, pointing to a number of incidents on the campaign trail in which Biden has made gaffes or appeared to be confused. However, Trump, a divisive figure in the US, has been heavily criticized for his poor handling of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Most recent polls show Biden having an advantage over Trump.