Clinton says Biden should have passed the torch in 2024 election

Hillary Clinton used a New York stage to sharpen the Democratic Party’s delayed 2024 reckoning, saying Joe Biden should have “passed the torch” and allowed an open primary instead of running for another term. Speaking in conversation with David Remnick at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Clinton said Biden’s decision was “a terrible mistake” for himself, his legacy and the country.

Her comments go to the heart of a fight Democrats have still not settled: whether the party lost because Biden stayed in too long, or because it never gave another candidate a real race. Clinton said a competitive primary would have produced a nominee capable of defeating Donald Trump, adding that the winner of such a contest, whether Kamala Harris, a governor, a senator or another Democrat, would have beaten him. The remark lands with unusual force because Clinton backed Biden’s 2024 campaign before the race collapsed.

Biden announced his reelection bid on April 25, 2023, and became the presumptive Democratic nominee on March 12, 2024 after the first primary contests began on January 23, 2024. But his June 27, 2024 debate with Trump fueled a wave of concern about his age and fitness, and Biden ended his campaign on July 21, 2024. Harris then became the Democratic nominee without an open primary and lost to Trump in November 2024.

Biden’s own withdrawal speech, delivered on July 24, 2024, underscored the language Clinton has now embraced. He said the best way forward was to “pass the torch” to a new generation, a phrase Democrats have since returned to as they debate how much the party’s leaders should have intervened earlier. Clinton’s criticism suggests that some of the party’s most prominent figures now feel freer to say out loud what many privately argued after the defeat: that the nomination fight should have been opened before Biden secured it.

That argument is about more than assigning blame for 2024. It is also about what kind of space Democrats want to clear for 2028, and whether the party’s next nominee should emerge from a broad competition rather than a protected heir apparent. Clinton’s remarks, delivered at a public New York forum and framed around Biden’s legacy, show that the party’s autopsy is still unfinished.