SPECIAL REPORT
How torture, deception and inaction underpin UAE’s thriving sex trafficking industry
African women trafficked into the UAE are forced into debt and subjected to threats and violence, as they are kept in sexual slavery. The case of Christy Gold, who has been charged with sex trafficking in Nigeria, highlights the torment endured by these women in the UAE
In a pleasure boat cruising Gulf waters near Dubai’s glittering skyline, a Nigerian woman in a white dress and gold jewelry nodded and swayed as a gathering sang “Happy Birthday” to her.
Videos of Christy Gold’s 45th birthday party were posted in May last year on an Instagram account that showcases her glamorous lifestyle, months after Gold fled Nigeria, where she was facing sex trafficking charges.
Gold – whose name appears in court records as Christiana Jacob Uadiale – was a ringleader in a criminal network that lured African women to Dubai and forced them into prostitution in brothels, backstreets, bars, hotels and dance clubs, according to six Nigerian government anti-trafficking officials, a British human rights activist who has tracked her operation and five women who say they were trafficked and exploited by her.
Three of the women said in interviews that Gold told them that if they didn’t do as they were told, they’d be killed and dumped in the desert.
Those who didn’t make enough money for her were taken to a room in an apartment in Dubai, where Gold’s brother starved them, flogged them and shoved hot chili paste into their vaginas, according to three anti-trafficking officials and five women who provided detailed accounts in interviews and court statements.
“They beat the hell out of me,” one of the women said. “The suffering was too much.”
In a statement to the court after she was charged, Gold denied that she and her brother were sex traffickers. “I am not involved in human trafficking and I do not have any girls in Dubai working for me as a prostitute,” she said.
Gold remains a fugitive from justice – part of what anti-trafficking activists and officials say is a thriving underground of suspected Nigerian sex traffickers who have taken refuge in the United Arab Emirates, a Gulf nation known for its wealth, futuristic skyscrapers and what rights groups say is a poor record on protecting foreign workers and basic freedoms.
The UAE is a major destination for sex trafficking, where African women are forced into prostitution by illicit networks operating within the country, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Reuters has found.
Emirati authorities do little to protect these women, according to anti-trafficking activists, Nigerian authorities and interviews with trafficked women.
This story is based on interviews with 25 African women, mostly from Nigeria, who described being lured to the UAE by Gold or other alleged traffickers, as well as dozens of interviews with humanitarian workers, investigators, Nigerian government officials and others with knowledge of sex trafficking in the Emirates. Their accounts are corroborated by court records and case files from Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency.
Human traffickers keep African women in sexual slavery by playing on their financial desperation and creating webs of manipulation and coercion, the reporting shows. They subject them to threats and violence.
They ensnare them in crushing debts, often totaling $10,000 to $15,000 – huge sums for women from poor families. And, in many cases, they exploit traditional African spiritual beliefs to make victims believe that they have no choice but to do what the traffickers tell them.
This article is part of a reporting collaboration led by ICIJ, Trafficking Inc., which is examining sex trafficking and labor trafficking in many parts of the globe. ICIJ’s media partners on the project include Reuters, NBC News, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and other news outlets in multiple countries.
“Every time we don’t bring money, they would beat us, put pepper in our vagina, pepper in our eyes… Many of us had wounds, but we weren’t taken to hospitals because they don’t want people to know what they were doing to us.”
A Nigerian woman who said she was trafficked by Christy Gold.
Gold did not respond to questions for this story. In her statement to the court in Nigeria, Gold said she had helped Nigerian women and men move to the UAE by subletting space to them in an apartment she owned in Dubai.
“I even go as far as advising them like a mother so they too can make it in Dubai,” she said. But she told the court, “I cannot tell what these people did for a living in Dubai.”
In a written reply supplied by the Dubai government’s media affairs office, the emirate’s police agency said claims that Gold had engaged in the sex trafficking of African women in Dubai are “false and have absolutely no basis in fact.”
The statement said Gold had “entered and exited Dubai legally and was not implicated in any illegal activities.”
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said any suggestion the UAE “tolerates human trafficking or that it has little regard to the victims of this heinous crime is utterly false.” Such allegations, the ministry said in response to questions, were “baseless and without foundation.”
The ministry said the UAE’s laws on sex trafficking carry heavy fines and prison sentences. A report the ministry shared said the UAE had referred 20 “human trafficking cases” to the courts in 2021, most for “sexual exploitation.”
The UAE has been involved in international police operations against trafficking networks, the ministry said.
Human rights activists and Nigerian authorities say the UAE doesn’t live up to its anti-trafficking commitments.
Fatima Waziri-Azi, director general of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, said there has been “no cooperation” when NAPTIP has reached out to Emirati authorities for help hunting down traffickers working out of the UAE.
Angus Thomas, a British activist who founded an anti-trafficking education organization based in Ghana, said UAE authorities, including the police, were uncooperative when he urged them to help African women get away from Gold and her associates.
“I wrote, I phoned, I emailed, asking them to help me get the girls, sending addresses of apartments,” he said. “And I heard nothing.”
In plain sight
Sex trafficking is one form of human trafficking, which is generally defined as using force, fraud or coercion to induce someone to provide a service.
Most of the 25 women interviewed for this story said they were promised other types of work but were driven into prostitution. Others said they chose to do sex work but were trapped in situations in which they were abused, their earnings were stolen and they were unable to get away.
The UAE made sex trafficking a crime in 2006 and has established an interagency anti-trafficking panel and opened shelters for survivors. The U.S. State Department said in 2022 that the UAE has made “significant efforts” to combat human trafficking but still falls short in key areas – including failing to “consistently screen vulnerable populations for trafficking indicators, which may have penalized some victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit, such as immigration or ‘prostitution’ violations.”
The UAE follows Islamic law, yet prostitution and sex trafficking are open secrets. Business cards with photos and WhatsApp numbers for brothels disguised as massage parlors litter many areas of Dubai. Spas, dance clubs and bars are filled with sex workers.
“I have never at any time instructed him to beat any of the girls as I have never had cause to beat any of them.”
Christy Gold, in a statement to a Nigerian court about her brother Solomon.
A hierarchy based on skin tone plays an important role in the UAE’s sex industry, according to interviews with trafficked women and visits to spots where prostitutes congregate in the UAE.
Lighter-skinned women from Europe are generally trafficked into higher-end venues serving wealthier customers. Darker-skinned women are often steered to alleys and street corners, providing sex to low-income migrant workers from South Asia and Africa.
One Nigerian woman described being taken by a trafficker to an open-air brothel in the desert between Dubai and another emirate, Abu Dhabi. She said she and other women would take off their clothes and spread them on the ground, and men would come to have sex with them from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
A Nigerian mother in her 20s said a trafficker led her and two other women to a parking lot in Ajman, one of the emirates that make up the UAE, and forced them to have sex with male clients amid vehicles that were being painted and repaired. At the end of the night, she said, the traffickers took all the money, leaving them with nothing to buy food.
After she broke free of the trafficker, the woman said, she slept in the streets and begged for food. She nearly lost her mind, she said, before a nurse from Nigeria rescued her and helped her get home.
The UAE’s sex industry is shaped by the country’s distinctive demography and economy.
Nearly 90% of its population comes from somewhere else – mostly foreign workers employed in construction, hospitality and other industries. Most of them are men and they arrive alone.
As a result, 69% of the UAE’s population is male. The government deals with these demographic realities by deploying extensive surveillance in the UAE – and by allowing a bustling sex trade as a way of pacifying male workers, according to two former diplomats who were based in the UAE and monitored sex trafficking.
Gold and Mercy
On New Year’s Eve 2019, Thomas, a photographer and anti-trafficking activist, had a one-day layover in the UAE before heading home to London. He was going into a supermarket in Dubai when a 19-year-old Nigerian woman approached him and offered him sex.
He declined, but asked her if she wanted to return to her home country.
She told him, Thomas said, that she and 22 other women were under the control of a trafficker named Christy Gold.
Back in London, he sent her money to rent a safe place to stay and then arranged a flight home to Nigeria.
Thomas said he began trying to rescue other women trapped in Dubai. He started a campaign called Send Them Home, raising money to cover victims’ escape and travel costs.
Over several months, Thomas said, he helped rescue eight other women who said they’d been held against their will by Gold or other traffickers operating in the UAE.
Thomas’ account was confirmed by Nigerian anti-trafficking officials and women who Thomas helped escape from traffickers.
He also shared information that he had gathered about Gold with Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency NAPTIP, which can arrest and prosecute alleged traffickers.
His efforts included tracking Gold’s Instagram account, where she displays hundreds of online posts featuring lion-shaped gold pendants and other jewelry she sells through a gold trading business she runs from Dubai.
In a May 2022 email to Waziri-Azi, the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency’s director, Thomas wrote that Gold was “flaunting her wealth built on the backs” of young women “she trafficks to Dubai.”
Little is known about Gold’s background. In her written statement to the Nigerian court, Gold said that she traveled to Dubai in 2009 and after that began shuttling back and forth, buying gold, shoes and handbags in the UAE and selling them in Nigeria.
According to victim statements to the court and interviews, Gold and her associates targeted Nigerian women who were desperate for work and new lives, promising them jobs in hair salons, restaurants and other retail businesses in Dubai.
Gold’s associates helped them obtain Nigerian passports and tourist visas to travel to the UAE.
Descriptions of her operations come from five women who said they’d been trafficked by Gold.
Three gave detailed interviews. Two of the three women interviewed for this story, along with two other women, have submitted witness statements in Gold’s criminal case.
Each of the three women interviewed for this article said she was trafficked after being approached by a recruiter, Mercy Ewere Owuzo, who worked with Gold.
One said she was working in a shop in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, in July 2019 when Owuzo told her that she could make much more money as a salesperson in a store in Dubai.
“I didn’t ask any questions because she told me she is trying to help young women and I thought, ‘She is a kind person,’” the woman, 25, recalled.
She said Owuzo paid for her passport, plane ticket and UAE tourist visa.
After arriving in Dubai, she said, she talked by phone to Owuzo, who told her there was no job for her in a store. Instead, she would be going to clubs, restaurants and hotels to sell her body. It was the only way, she said she was told, to pay down the $12,000 debt that she owed Gold for bringing her to the UAE.
The three women said Gold also controlled them by confiscating their passports. Then, they said, she created fake passports that appeared authentic enough to get them through routine police stops or past front desks at hotels – but not enough to get them out of the country.
It’s not clear from witness accounts and court documents whether Gold was the topmost leader of the alleged trafficking network.
The three women interviewed for this story said she exercised a substantial level of authority and was deeply engaged in the network’s operations – personally threatening, for example, to leave their corpses in the Arabian Desert if they didn’t comply with her demands.
“Every time we don’t bring money, they would beat us, put pepper in our vagina, pepper in our eyes,” said one of the three women, who said she was working as a hairstylist in Nigeria before Owuzo promised her a better-paying job in Dubai.
“Many of us had wounds, but we weren’t taken to hospitals because they don’t want people to know what they were doing to us.”
All three of these women spent time in a two-bedroom apartment in Dubai controlled by Gold. At one point, they said, Gold occupied one bedroom, while as many as 18 women were crammed into the other, with most sleeping on blankets on the floor.
It was here, according to interviews and court statements, that women marked for punishment were sent and where Gold’s enforcer – her brother Solomon – sexually assaulted them and beat their malnourished bodies with a hookah hose, broomstick or other implements.
NAPTIP officials said Solomon has not been charged with a crime. Gold said in her court statement that she never ordered Solomon to hurt anyone who stayed in her apartment in Dubai.
“I have never at any time instructed him to beat any of the girls as I have never had cause to beat any of them,” she said.
ICIJ and Reuters were unable to contact Solomon. Victoria Oburoh, one of NAPTIP’s top prosecutors, confirmed that Gold and Owuzo worked together. In May last year, NAPTIP was able to win a conviction of Owuzo on sex trafficking charges in federal court in the Nigerian state of Delta. Oburoh said that case and the one pending against Gold are “sister cases.”
A lawyer who represented Owuzo during her trial declined to comment.
NAPTIP began an investigation of Gold after one of her alleged victims reported her to the police in Nigeria. Authorities charged Gold with six counts of violating Nigeria’s sex trafficking law.
After a judge released her on bail, she failed to show up for a scheduled court appearance on Nov. 3, 2021. Her lawyer told the judge that Gold had been “found half dead on the bed” and taken to a hospital.
The judge ordered that Gold be taken back into custody. But authorities had no luck tracking her down, NAPTIP officials say.
Christy Gold had disappeared.
‘Put me in prison’
Loudspeakers announced evening prayers at a mosque in Al Baraha, a working-class neighborhood in Dubai’s populous Deira district, when a reporter visited last August.
Steps away, young women in colorful wigs and low-cut evening dresses lined up in front of shabby buildings for their day’s work: providing sex to men. On the fourth and fifth floors of one building, South Asian men sat in the stairway, scrolling on their phones, sipping beer and waiting for their turns with the sex workers.
All the while police vehicles slowly navigated the district’s narrow alleys – part of the policing and surveillance apparatus that keeps UAE authorities deeply informed about what’s going on in Dubai and other emirates.
One of the sex workers was a young woman who arrived from Ghana in June 2022. She said she was promised a job as a housemaid but found herself doing an entirely different kind of work.
She rolled up her dress to show the bruises that came with the job.
“A few days ago, my eyes were swollen after being hit in the face and slapped when I failed to meet the target,” she said. “It’s my boss who did this to me.”
He told her, she said, that if she wanted to gain her freedom, she had to pay a debt of nearly $10,000.
“Where do I go? What do I do?” she asked, breaking into tears. She said her trafficker, whom she didn’t name, had taken away her phone and passport.
Another way traffickers and their subordinates control African women is by using the power of juju, a traditional African spiritual belief system.
Women targeted for sex trafficking are required to take “juju oaths,” solemn vows to do the bidding of the recruiters who have promised to help them find work abroad.
As part of the oath-taking ceremonies, they are told to strip naked, kneel for hours and swallow noxious drinks that can make them dizzy. They’re warned that breaking their vows of obedience could put a curse on them that could cause injury, death, even generational misfortune for their families.
Most of the women interviewed for this story said they had been required to take a juju oath, with some of the ceremonies conducted in Nigeria and others after they arrived in the UAE.
JUJU pix
Three women said in witness statements in Gold’s criminal case that Gold’s associates required them to do oath-taking ceremonies in Nigeria before they traveled to Dubai.
“She makes us believe she has juju,” one woman who claims she’d been trafficked by Gold said in an interview. “That is, if we run away, we can become mad or die.”
In her statement to the court, Gold denied organizing such ceremonies.
When women brave the threats of real violence and otherworldly consequences to try to escape their traffickers, they say they often get little help from Emirati authorities.
A 25-year-old Ugandan said that after she fled a brothel in the Deira district of Dubai where she was forced to work, she headed to the nearest police station. She said a police officer took her back to the brothel and negotiated with the trafficker to return the passport to her. The officer left without doing anything else, and the trafficker took the passport back again, she said.
She got away for good only after she reached out to Nyondo Rozet, a Ugandan YouTube broadcaster based in the UAE. Rozet posted a video about her plight, which raised the money for a plane ticket home.
“A few days ago, my eyes were swollen after being hit in the face and slapped when I failed to meet the target. It’s my boss who did this to me.”
A young woman from Ghana who said she was promised a job as a housemaid in Dubai but was forced into prostitution.
Rozet, whose videos primarily appeal to the Ugandan community in the UAE, said in an interview that a woman who called her, saying she was the trafficker, offered her money to take the video down.
When she refused, Rozet said, other people contacted her to threaten harm if she didn’t delete the video, telling her: “You are not going to survive.”
The Dubai police did not respond to questions about the incident.
A 23-year-old woman from Nigeria’s northeastern farm belt said she thought UAE police would help her after she fled a brothel in Abu Dhabi where she and six other women had been locked in a room filled with steel beds separated by curtains. Every night, she had to have sex with half a dozen men.
She had slipped away when her boss got drunk and left the key in the door. But when she walked into a police station in the Khalidiya area of Abu Dhabi, she said, an officer told her, “Go to where you came from.”
She said she pleaded: “Put me in prison!” But “they turned their back to me. I was crying, but they paid no attention. They said: ‘To Hell with Africa.’”
The police station in Khalidiya did not respond to a request for comment.
Extradition request
For years, large numbers of migrants from Nigeria and other African countries have sought jobs and new lives in Europe.
Migration routes have changed as European Union members have pushed migrants back to Libya, the main transit point across the Mediterranean Sea. With the way to Europe increasingly blocked, African migrants have turned, in growing numbers, to the UAE and other rich Arab nations.
Oburoh, the NAPTIP prosecutor, said that when trafficking cases have links to Europe, governments there provide information and cooperation that help the agency apprehend and prosecute traffickers.
But when it comes to the UAE, official cooperation is nonexistent, Nigerian anti-trafficking investigators said.
At home, NAPTIP operates in an environment where some government officials also have been accused of engaging in human trafficking – and where, NAPTIP officials say, convicted traffickers often avoid jail terms.
The Nigerian government did not respond to a request for comment.
-Reuters
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SPECIAL REPORT
Morocco’s monarch marks 25th Throne Day with landmark reforms
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Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Monday marked the 25th anniversary of his ascension to the throne by announcing major reforms to reshape the kingdom and offer solutions to global problems.
He paid particular attention to the pressing issue of water scarcity in the kingdom while announcing the launch of many economic and development projects as well as social programs to achieve social cohesion and enable citizens to have access to basic services.
One of the major challenges in Morocco is that of water – a challenge which becomes increasingly serious due to drought. For six consecutive years drought has had a great impact on water reserves and groundwater, making the water situation more and more fragile and complex.
The King underscored the urgency of addressing the water crisis and has decided to tackle the challenge head-on.
“In this regard, it is necessary to complete the dam construction program and to give priority to the dams planned in the areas receiving significant rainfall”, the king announced on Monday.”
That will include the acceleration of large-scale projects for inter-basin transfers: especially from the Oued Laou and Loukkos basins to the Oum Er-Rbia basin, through the Sebou and Bouregreg basins.
“This will make it possible to retain one billion cubic meters of water that is being lost to the sea”, King Mohammed VI remarked.
In the global arena, the monarch as the Chairman of the al-Quds Committee, an intergovernmental organization and one of the four standing committees of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, enunciated the efforts he has made in providing solution to the armed conflict in Gaza.
“The keen interest we take in the situation prevailing in the country does not mean we are oblivious of, or insensitive to, the tragedy befalling our Palestinian brothers and sisters.
“As Chairman of the al-Quds Committee, I managed to have an unprecedented route opened up, through which we delivered urgent food and medical aid to our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
“And in keeping with the same spirit of commitment and responsibility, I continue to back constructive initiatives aimed at finding practical solutions, achieving a tangible and permanent ceasefire, and addressing the humanitarian situation.
“The deteriorating conditions in the region require going beyond the logic of crisis management and seeking, instead, a final solution to this conflict, based on the following:
“First: If putting an end to the war in Gaza is an urgent priority, then this must be achieved concurrently with opening up political prospects conducive to a just and lasting peace in the region;
“Second: Opting for negotiations to revive the peace process between the Palestinian and Israeli sides requires cutting off the path for extremists – from whatever side they may come;
“Third: Achieving complete security and stability in the region can be realized only within the framework of the two-state solution, with Gaza an integral part of the territory of the independent Palestinian state, and East Jerusalem its capital.”
SPECIAL REPORT
Obama issues statement on Biden’s announcement
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Following the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the US Presidential Race later this year, his predecessor, Barack Obama has issued the following statement;
“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me. Today, we’ve also been reminded — again — that he’s a patriot of the highest order.
“Sixteen years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I knew about Joe’s remarkable career in public service. But what I came to admire even more was his character — his deep empathy and hard-earned resilience; his fundamental decency and belief that everyone counts.
“Since taking office, President Biden has displayed that character again and again. He helped end the pandemic, created millions of jobs, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, passed the first major piece of gun safety legislation in 30 years, made the biggest investment to address climate change in history, and fought to ensure the rights of working people to organize for fair wages and benefits. Internationally, he restored America’s standing in the world, revitalized NATO, and mobilized the world to stand up against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“More than that, President Biden pointed us away from the four years of chaos, falsehood, and division that had characterized Donald Trump’s administration. Through his policies and his example, Joe has reminded us of who we are at our best — a country committed to old-fashioned values like trust and honesty, kindness and hard work; a country that believes in democracy, rule of law, and accountability; a country that insists that everyone, no matter who they are, has a voice and deserves a chance at a better life.
“This outstanding track record gave President Biden every right to run for re-election and finish the job he started. Joe understands better than anyone the stakes in this election — how everything he has fought for throughout his life, and everything that the Democratic Party stands for, will be at risk if we allow Donald Trump back in the White House and give Republicans control of Congress.
“I also know Joe has never backed down from a fight. For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of country — and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.
“We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond.
“For now, Michelle and I just want to express our love and gratitude to Joe and Jill for leading us so ably and courageously during these perilous times — and for their commitment to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on.”
SPECIAL REPORT
BREAKING! Biden drops out of US Presidential Race
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U.S. President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday after fellow Democrats lost faith in his mental acuity and ability to beat Donald Trump while endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party’s candidate.
Biden, 81, in a post on X, said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025 and will address the nation this week.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
His initial statement had not included an endorsement of Harris, but he followed up a few minutes later with an expression of support.
Harris, 59, would become the first Black woman to do run at the top of a major-party ticket in the country’s history.
Former President Trump, the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 election, told CNN on Sunday that he believed Harris would be easier to defeat.
Biden had a change of heart, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The president told allies that as of Saturday night he planned to stay in the race before changing his mind on Sunday afternoon.
“Last night the message was proceed with everything, full speed ahead,” a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “At around 1:45 p.m. today: the president told his senior team that he had changed his mind.”
He announced his decision on social media within minutes.
It was unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party’s nomination – she was widely seen as the pick for many party officials – or whether the party itself would choose to open the field for nominations.
Biden’s announcement follows a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to quit the race after his shockingly poor performance in a June 27 televised debate last month against Republican rival Trump, 78.
Biden’s failure at times to complete clear sentences took the public spotlight away from Trump’s performance, in which he made a string of false statements, and trained it instead on questions surrounding Biden’s fitness for another 4-year term.
Days later he raised fresh concerns in an interview, shrugging off Democrats’ worries and a widening gap in opinion polls, and saying he would be fine losing to Trump if he knew he’d “gave it my all.”
His gaffes at a NATO summit – invoking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s name when he meant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and calling Harris “Vice President Trump” -further stoked anxieties.
Only four days before Sunday’s announcement, Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 for a third time, forcing him to cut short a campaign trip to Las Vegas. More than one in 10 congressional Democrats had called publicly for him to quit the race.
Biden’s historic move – the first sitting president to give up his party’s nomination for reelection since President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 – leaves his replacement with less than four months to wage a campaign.
If Harris emerges as the nominee, the move would represent an unprecedented gamble by the Democratic Party: its first Black and Asian American woman to run for the White House in a country that has elected one Black president and never a woman president in more than two centuries of democracy.
Biden was the oldest U.S. president ever elected when he beat Trump in 2020. During that campaign, Biden described himself as a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Some interpreted that to mean he would serve one term, a transitional figure who beat Trump and brought his party back to power.
But he set his sights on a second term in the belief that he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump again amid questions about Harris’s experience and popularity. In recent times, though, his advanced age began to show through more. His gait became stilted and his childhood stutter occasionally returned.
His team had hoped a strong performance at the June 27 debate would ease concerns over his age. It did the opposite: a Reuters/Ipsos poll after the debate showed that about 40% of Democrats thought he should quit the race.
Donors began to revolt and supporters of Harris began to coalesce around her. Top Democrats, including former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime ally, told Biden he cannot win the election.
Biden initially resisted pressure to step aside. He held damage-control calls and meetings with lawmakers and state governors, and sat for rare television interviews. But it was not enough. Polls showed Trump’s lead in key battleground states widening, and Democrats began to fear a wipeout in the House and Senate. On July 17, California’s Rep. Adam Schiff called on him to exit the race.
Biden’s departure sets up a stark new contrast, between the Democrats’ presumptive new nominee, Harris, a former prosecutor, and Trump who is two decades her senior and faces two outstanding criminal prosecutions related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result. He is due to be sentenced in New York in September on a conviction for trying to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star.
BIDEN STRUGGLED BEFORE DEBATE
Earlier this year, facing little opposition, Biden easily won the Democratic Party’s primary race to pick its presidential candidate, despite voter concerns about his age.
However, his staunch support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza eroded support among some in his own party, particularly young, progressive Democrats and voters of color.
Many Black voters say Biden has not done enough for them, and enthusiasm among Democrats overall for a second Biden term had been low. Even before the debate with Trump, Biden was trailing the Republican in some national polls and in the battleground states he would have needed to win to prevail on Nov. 5.
Harris was tasked with reaching out to those voters in recent months.
During the primary race, Biden accumulated more than 3,600 delegates to the Democratic National Convention to be held in Chicago in August. That was almost double the 1,976 needed to win the party’s nomination.
Unless the Democratic Party changes the rules, delegates pledged to Biden would enter the convention “uncommitted,” leaving them to vote on his successor.
Democrats also have a system of “superdelegates,” unpledged senior party officials and elected leaders whose support is limited on the first ballot but who could play a decisive role in subsequent rounds.
Biden beat Trump in 2020 by winning in the key battleground states, including tight races in Pennsylvania and Georgia. At a national level, he bested Trump by more than 7 million votes, capturing 51.3% of the popular vote to Trump’s 46.8%.
-Reuters
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