Joe Biden Closes the Door on Running for President

Vice President Joe Biden ended weeks of speculation on Wednesday and announced that he will not run for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Biden appeared with President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden on Wednesday and noted there was a window for running for president. 

“I’ve concluded that it has closed,” Biden said, noting that his family was doing better after the death of his son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. “Beau was our inspiration.”

Saying it would be a “tragic mistake” to turn away from the “Obama legacy” and urged Democrats to run on the president’s record in 2016, Biden said he would remain politically active. 
 
“While I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent,” Biden said. 

Biden ran for the Democratic nomination in both 1988 and 2008. Polls at the national level and of key states have shown Biden behind former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.