Why Biden Wants Y'all to Think He's Running in 2024

Real or not, Joe Biden wants to proceed his 2024 options open. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Every bit his beginning, up-and-down yr as president nears its end, Joe Biden really wants yous to know he plans to run for a second term in 2024. He reiterated his intentions in an ABC News interview last week, while making the requisite hedge that a reelection bid depended on him being "in adept health."

Biden doesn't really have to talk about 2024 and then early in his presidency. The 2022 midterms over ten months from now volition mark the beginning of the 2024 cycle, and even and so, successful presidential candidates — particularly those with the advantage of incumbency — have waited afterward than that to announce formally.

And then why is Biden antsy near making certain anybody knows he's already wearing his running shoes? There are five pretty good reasons:

Joe Biden isn't simply whatever president. Before this year he became the oldest to take office past a goodly margin (he was 77, already the aforementioned historic period as Ronald Reagan when he left office later eight years; the oldest to get-go take office prior to Biden was Donald Trump at lxx). If he runs in 2024 he would exist the start octogenarian to seriously pursue a major-party presidential nomination.

If Biden decides not to run once again, he could claim he's already accomplished his initial stated reason for pursuing the nomination in 2020: ejecting Donald Trump from the White Business firm and serving as a transition to a new generation of Autonomous Political party leaders. The logic of Biden hanging it upwards later on one term is strong enough that the suspicion it may happen volition continue to percolate through political circles, unless he actually acts like he's running and says metronomically that he'south still in the game.

Biden is non currently on a glide path toward recognition as ane of America'due south dandy presidents. Indeed, he's got some ground to brand upwards if he is to regain the modest popularity he had at the get-go of this year. And he's already begetting at to the lowest degree a president's-size share of the arraign for what has been a disappointing 2021 for Democrats.

Considering his relatively depression-profile presidential style, Biden could get taken for granted or fifty-fifty written off if political observers call up he'south out of at that place in 2024. This is actually a problem for every struggling first-term president. In mid-1979, a very unpopular Jimmy Carter facing an uphill nomination fight confronting Ted Kennedy went out of his way to tell reporters that if Teddy ran "I'll whip his donkey." Biden needs to bear witness some fight also. If, by contrast, the 46th president looks similar he might get the first chief executive since Rutherford B. Hayes to pack it in after a single four-yr term, he's going to lose some juice for real.

Equally Biden's vice-president, Harris is his heir apparent. But that doesn't mean she'southward anything like a lock for the 2024 presidential nomination if Biden does determine not to run.

Since Globe War Ii, four sitting vice-presidents have run for the big job. The starting time, Richard Nixon, won the 1960 Republican presidential nomination by near-acclamation, though not without making some controversial policy concessions to keep Nelson Rockefeller from challenging him. Afterwards Hubert Humphrey (in 1968), George H.Due west. Bush (in 1988), and Al Gore (in 2000) had to win their party's nomination confronting serious opposition.

Harris is positioned well ideologically to unify Democrats if she runs as Biden'south preferred successor. But she has some meaning popularity problems, and the Beltway insider class that influences media coverage has regularly disrespected her.

The longer Biden freezes potential opposition in identify past planning — or pretending to plan — a reelection campaign, the easier it would be for Kamala Harris to have over that campaign and marginalize rivals. If, equally we have been told, Biden feels a debt of gratitude to Harris for helping him win in 2020 and perhaps a little guilt for how he has deployed her as veep, protecting her interests as a potential party leader ought to be a priority.

In the ABC News interview, Biden was asked direct about the possibility of a rematch of the 2020 presidential election:

Asked whether he would run confronting Trump if the former president was the Republican nominee, Biden chuckled and said he would.

"Why would I not run confronting Donald Trump as the nominee?" Biden said. "That would increase the prospect of running."

Makes sense to me. Whatever Biden does or does non reach as president might pale in significance when compared to protecting the country twice from Donald J. Trump. And that's not the but reward of a rematch. To the extent that Biden's age is a factor, Trump is a lot older (he will be 78 in 2024) than whatever of the other likely Republican nominees. But more than importantly, Biden's biggest political problem at the moment is a falloff in support and enthusiasm among Democrats and Autonomous-leaning independents. He'south in really serious trouble with young voters, a group that was pivotal in his 2020 general-election victory.

Nothing would motivate Democratic base constituencies to turn out in 2024 — along with keeping swing voters from stampeding to the GOP — similar Trump winning his party'southward nomination again. Biden has every reason to position himself as a candidate for reelection and then long as that possibility — perhaps information technology's even a probability — exists.

We'll obviously know more about Biden's viability and interest in a 2nd term once this bizarre yr has concluded and he gets a 2d shot at returning America to normalcy, bold that'due south fifty-fifty an option any more than.

Biden may await a trivial toasty right now in terms of reelection, peculiarly if (equally appears likely) Democrats wind up with some big-time midterm losses next year. But the president has been around long enough to remember Beak Clinton winning reelection in 1996 after a baleful 1994 midterm, and Barack Obama and himself winning a second term in 2012 after an equally terrible 2010 midterm. Everyone in politics and in life likes the idea of going out on a high bespeak. A Biden reelection would represent the final time this old pol was underestimated.

Why Biden Wants You to Think He's Running in 2024