The launch was a throwback in tone and format that matches the person, if not the period he leads.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced his 2024 reelection bid. It concludes a long period of will-he-or-won’t-he conjecture and Democratic concern, extraordinary considering that no incumbent president eligible for a second term has declined in more than 50 years.
“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” Biden said in a Democratic National Committee-funded campaign kickoff video posted early Tuesday morning. “I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too.”
Biden has been public nearly that long. On a superstitious day, he quietly announced his intransigence.
Biden entered the presidential race on the same day and with the same video as four years earlier. The announcement comes on a day when both he and Vice President Kamala Harris are having official events related to their reelection strategy—Biden at a union meeting to trumpet legislative achievements, Harris at Howard University to discuss abortion rights.
Of course, Biden won the previous time he ran, despite party members and outsiders questioning his age and relevance. The world has changed, even if the president hasn’t.
The COVID pandemic came and went; Russia’s war in Ukraine came and stayed; inflation has sapped paychecks and economic perceptions; a conservative Supreme Court majority ended a constitutional right to abortion; and the last president lost an election, refused to admit it, and is still contesting the results while running for reelection.
The turmoil looks to have hurt. According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, Biden’s popularity rating plummeted in his first summer in office and has been underwater for 20 months.
Over the weekend, 70% of Americans polled by NBC News said Biden should not run again. That includes 51% of Democrats, many of whom cite his age as a reason to not run.
That has caused unusual Democratic Party concern about whether the incumbent Democratic president should run again. A notable author who qualified for a 2020 primary debate and an activist from one of the country’s most politically prominent families have announced their candidacies, but the party’s biggest stars are not.
Once again, he gave notice that he had no intention of changing.
Biden should win Democratic primaries, but his staff is trying to rearrange the states’ voting order just in case. While Republicans prepare for a tough fight, Democrats are getting concerned about supporting an 80-year-old.
Harvard University’s Kennedy School Institute of Politics polling released Monday highlights Biden’s vulnerabilities. Despite widespread support for Biden’s programs among voters and potential voters under 30, the president’s popularity rating is stuck in the mid-30s.
“We honestly do see this gaping disconnect between approval of the president and approval of the party, and the policies and values that they stand for,” said poll director John Della Volpe, a former Biden pollster. “That needs to be addressed before 2024.”
Della Volpe, who left his job to work for Biden’s 2020 campaign, remarked that Biden’s approval rating among younger Americans was low at the start. After months of messaging, such voters helped him defeat then-President Donald Trump.
He said Biden must sell his successes on the environment, gun control, infrastructure, health care, and more and show that he understands voters’ frustration.
In 2020, Biden defeated several younger competitors to become the nominee and defeat Trump. His party also won a Senate seat and narrowly lost control of the House in the 2022 midterms.
Trump may still help Biden politically. Biden predicted in his 2019 launch video that Trump’s four years will be a “aberrant moment in time.”
Trump remains the GOP’s 2024 frontrunner. Biden’s campaign-launch video features Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and R-Ga. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Biden alone defeated Trump. His low-key launch at least implies what he is not, which may be enough of a campaign reason.
In December 2016, Vice President Joe Biden declared, “Four years is a lifetime in politics,” deflecting questions about his ambitions for the following election.
He couldn’t have realized how many lives a presidential term would shape. His party expects he will again be right for the political context, even if events move faster than he likes.
“This is our moment,” the president added.
