Even before last year’s midterm elections, President Joe Biden has been saying that he intends to run for re-election. However, Biden has waited to announce a campaign officially, even with the GOP’s primary already progressing.
But Biden is preparing an announcement next week, three insiders told The Washington Post after being briefed on his plans.
In fact, Biden’s aides are finishing the rollout plans for a video announcement, the three anonymous insiders said.
Team Biden is reportedly scheduling the announcement for Tuesday in order to mark the four-year anniversary of his last campaign announcement. However, Biden’s aides also acknowledged the possibility of delay, according to the Post.
Biden and his aides are feeling no need to rush, the paper reported.
Last year, the 80-year-old Biden was fielding calls to step aside in 2024. Then, he presided over the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in last year’s midterm elections, prompting many Democrats to stop looking for alternatives.
Now, the national Democratic Party has committed to supporting a Biden campaign for re-election, according to the Post. Plus, the party has reportedly denied any plans to sponsor primary debates between Biden and the other Democrats, who are longshot candidates with no history of winning elections.
Some of Biden’s aides worry about a difficult campaign against former President Donald Trump, and they would have preferred an earlier announcement in order to start fundraising early.
Other aides want Biden to appear above the GOP’s tense primary, and so they agree with the president’s decision to wait.
Biden announced his 2020 campaign rather late, too. By comparison, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — one of the Democrats’ 2020 candidates — formed her exploratory committee before the end of 2018. This time, Trump announced his 2024 run a whole 23 months before the election.
Regardless of the announcement date, Biden looks unlikely to give stump speeches anytime before June. He’s traveling to Japan and Australia next month, and after that, he’ll likely be occupied by a debt-ceiling showdown with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
In 2020, Biden faced ridicule for avoiding a campaign’s traditional activities, like door-to-door canvassing. This time, he’s apparently mounting a more aggressive campaign, and he’s already appeared with some pop stars amid his approval problems with young people.
We’ll see.
The Horn editorial team