President Joe Biden does not feel any sort of hurry to formally declare his candidacy for president.
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“I plan on running, Al, but we’re not prepared to announce it yet,” Biden told NBC’s Al Roker.
Joe Biden stated his intent to run to MSNBC host and Democratic Party activist Al Sharpton last year during a photo opportunity in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
“I’m going to do it again,” Biden said, according to an official from the National Action Network, who recounted what the president had told him. “I’m going.”
Joe Biden Seems All in on 2024: Sort Of?
Joe Biden has a clear path to renomination next year. He has two announced challengers for the Democratic nomination. One has a familiar name.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hopes to follow in his uncle, Sen. Edward “Teddy” Kennedy’s footsteps, and be the second Kennedy to challenge an unpopular Democratic incumbent president in the primary. His uncle ran an unsuccessful challenge to former President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Carter, like Biden, faced a gloomy economic picture with runaway inflation and a weakened image on the world stage, but Carter easily beat back the challenge.
Similarly, Biden should have no problem beating back the Kennedy challenge. Biden’s left-of-center stances resonate well with the Democratic Party base.
Democratic Party leaders have a stronger say in their party’s nomination process than Republicans do, which accounted in part for Hillary Clinton’s defeat of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ challenge for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Thus far, they have indicated they are all in for Biden, which should make the president’s chances of sweeping to renomination even more likely.
“I hope he runs. I’m for him if he runs. I know that the Democrats will fully embrace him,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in February. “If he runs, it’s over.”
Joe Biden Doesn’t Fear Trump
His likely general election opponent, former President Donald Trump, is tied up in knots facing multiple possible indictments. The case against him in New York involving payments to former porn star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, might be weak. So far only pundits have paid much attention. Independents have been turned off by Trump’s legal woes, which benefits Biden.
Trump has become a useful scarecrow for Democrats, and the fact his negatives are stronger than Biden’s is the incumbent president’s only hope. The former president motivates Democrats and Independents to vote for the Democratic Party like no other candidate.
Biden has a higher approval rating than Trump at 34 percent compared with 25 percent for Trump, an ABC News/Ipsos poll found.
“He’s earned the luxury of making the timetable,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist in Washington, told “The Associated Press.” “The longer he can keep this thing focused on his duties in the White House, and less about the campaign back-and-forth, the better off he’s going to be.”
Biden’s likely campaign message will be asking voters to let him finish the job he started as president.
He will also continue accusing MAGA Republicans of polarizing America and join Trump in refighting the 2020 election and the former president’s involvement in setting the stage for the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
At this point, Biden has the luxury of time and can afford to wait.
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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.
