Former US vice-president Mr Al Gore says he will not run for president in 2004.
"I've decided that I will not be a candidate for president in 2004. I personally have the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign, but I don't think that it's the right thing for me to do," Mr Gore said yesterday during a television interview.
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Former Vice President Al Gore
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"I think that a campaign that would be a rematch between myself and President Bush would inevitably involve a focus on the past that would in some measure distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about".
Having won more votes than Bush in 2000, Mr Gore lost after his opponent secured more electoral college votes, leaving Mr Gore with a strong claim to run in the 2004 election.
Some Democrats had hoped Mr Gore would stand aside and clear the field for his party to rally behind a new, more charismatic leader to face a popular incumbent.
The biggest beneficiary of Gore's decision is his former 2000 vice presidential running mate, Sen Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who had said he would not run for the White House if Gore did.
"This [withdrawal] helps any and all Democrats considering running because Al clearly would have been the front-runner. Polls showed that," said a former senior adviser in the 2000 Gore-Lieberman campaign. "Now it is wide open".
Other possible Democratic contenders include Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and North Carolina Senator John Edwards.