Media figures have asked for weeks when President Joe Biden would begin his campaign. Now they have their answer. The president plans to announce his campaign for re-election next week according to various media reports. He had been cagey about his plans until now.
“I plan on running … but we’re not prepared to announce it yet,” Biden told NBC Today Show host during the annual Easter Egg Roll.
Insiders say that he likely will announce on April 25, the anniversary of his 2019 announcement of his candidacy for 2020. He will announce his candidacy via an online message. Jen O’Malley and White House Communications Director Anita Dunn will be involved with the campaign just as they were for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign for re-election.
Democratic Approval Low
Joe Biden, who is 80, is not expected to campaign for re-election until next year actively.
Democratic support for Joe Biden is weak. He enjoys less than 50 percent support in the Democratic primary heat, according to the Real Clear Politics Average of polls. Only 37 percent of Democrats say they would support him for re-election, which is well below the norm for an incumbent president seeking re-election. Among Joe Biden voters from 2020, 67 percent said they would vote for his re-election, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of 600 voters found.
By contrast, Barack Obama had 52 percent Democrat support in Fall 2010 as people started thinking about the 2012 race.
Fifty-one percent of voters say they prefer someone more moderate than either Biden or former President Donald Trump, according to the Harvard/Harris poll.
Kennedy Poses Opposition in the Party
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent candidacy also shows the weakness of Biden’s support among Democrats. The son of assassinated 1968 presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and nephew of President John F. Kennedy starts the race with 14 percent support among Democratic voters who voted for Biden in 2020.
Kennedy’s uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ran against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Carter, like Biden, was relatively unpopular in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis, yet he still defeated the senator.
Kennedy’s candidacy even has generated buzz among some Republican voters who suggest they might vote in the Democratic primary next year to vote for him.
“In 2020, Joe Biden received more votes than any other president in U.S. history, yet the poll tells us that those same voters are open to other Democrats to wage a spirited primary,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center told USA Today. “Kennedy, although a long shot at this point, starts in double digits and can’t be ignored.”
Kennedy could appeal to Democratic voters who believe that Biden has moved too far to the Left and to those who believe in a more traditional kind of Liberalism represented by the candidate’s father and uncle.
He polls better than any other potential Democratic candidate versus Joe Biden.
Biden’s entire re-election strategy hinges on former President Donald Trump’s legal problems and toxic personality and being even more unlikable than he is. Trump was the first president in the history of Gallup polling to have never broken 50 percent in the polls.
Currently, the latest Harvard/Harris poll shows that voters view Biden less favorably than Trump. Fifty-four percent of voters view Biden as being unfavorable compared with 49 percent for Trump. It also shows Biden losing to Trump by a 45 percent- to-40 percent margin and to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a 43 percent- to- 40 percent margin.
Joe Biden Faces an Uphill Campaign
Should Gov. Ron DeSantis pull off a miracle and defeat Trump in the primaries next year, Biden could end up in a situation where he must defend his record as president, his familial corruption, and the potential lies that put him in office.
Namely, how his campaign orchestrated the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officers that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.
If Trump is the GOP candidate, issues would take a backseat to personality, and Joe Biden likely would win that contest.
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John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.
