President Joe Biden, 79, has spent his entire presidency dodging rumors about his plans for 2024. His former press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters last year that Biden intends to run again.
“He has said he is running, so I think he is” the pollster Celinda Lake reportedly added Thursday, despite the possibility of Biden changing his mind.
Not everyone in D.C. is convinced, and Biden continues to face speculation about declining to run for a second term… perhaps more than any other president on this side of the 21st century.
Democrat insiders have restarted that speculation, according to a bombshell report by The Hill.
“I fully expect for him to run again,” Jim Manley, a former adviser to the late Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, told The Hill Thursday.
“But I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t a bunch of Democrats and their staffers watching very carefully as the weeks and months go by.”
Right now, the Democrats seem to be prioritizing a difficult midterm election, amid Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings.
Some insiders expect to start seeing presidential jockeying after this year’s midterms, and some of them expect ambitious Democrats to mount a primary challenge to Biden.
“If he’s weakened, the sharks will be circling the tank,” one strategist told The Hill anonymously.
At this moment, the Democrats have yet to promote any likely alternatives to Biden.
For one thing, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg underperformed during his last run for president, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 80, is even older than Biden.
The obvious successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, has been dealing with her own serious polling problems.
“I’m not so sure whether any Dems will defer to the VP if President Biden decides not to run,” Manley told The Hill. “If he decides not to run, I don’t think she has a lock on it.”
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has ruled out the possibility running against an incumbent Biden.
“I think Democrats are deluding themselves if they think Joe Biden could be beaten in a primary,” Jim Kessler, a vice president at the Third Way policy institute, told The Hill.
Kessler also expects the White House to dismiss the speculation about 2024. “I don’t think it bothers them at all,” he said.
However, Kessler also acknowledged that Biden may wait to announce his 2024 campaign.
“I expect that in less than a year’s time the president will make clear whether he’s running or not in 2024. I certainly hope he is running.”
In the past, presidential contenders have announced their campaigns shortly after the midterms. For the 2020 contest, Elizabeth Warren waited only three months and announced her campaign in February 2019.
That means politics may look very different after November’s midterm elections.
And it may not include Biden.
The Horn editorial team