President Joe Biden isn’t decided on whether to run for a second term in the 2024 presidential election, Politico reported Tuesday.
At 78-years-old, Biden is the oldest person ever elected president.
Insiders say that Biden, just a few months into his presidency, is still on the fence about a repeat run. While he’s leaning towards running for reelection, it is far from certain — which is very unusual for a first-term president.
Compare that to former President Donald Trump who, with every public appearance, seems to be teasing more and more that he’ll run, and the outlook on Biden is rather disappointing for Democrats.
Up until recent reports, Biden’s future has been a unclear, with pundits in the past attempting to speculate on his plans.
According to the brief Politico report, insiders say although he has publicly committed to running again in the media as recently as March, those soundbites were more so to prevent him from looking like a lame duck.
But at the same time, Biden did upset that narrative by reiterating to reporters that he was a great believer in fate, and therefore couldn’t predict the future.
“I’m a great respecter of fate,” he said in March. “I’ve never been able to plan four and a half, three and a half years ahead for certain.”
His chief political rival, Trump, is almost the exact opposite.
It seems that with nearly every public appearance the former president makes, the closer he is to a formal announcement.
As recently as Saturday evening, the former commander in chief told a crowd in North Carolina that he’d be making his official decision quite soon.
“I’ll make a decision in the not too distant future,” he said, “Maybe sooner than people think. And I think they’re going to be very happy.”
Much of Biden’s decision apparently lies in whether Trump will formally announce soon.
An excerpt from the Politico report reads:
As Trump has gotten more serious about running again, so too has the Biden team’s resolve to seek a second term. But regardless of whether Trump pulls the trigger, the 2024 campaign is still poised to be a contest between the Biden legacy and Trump’s party. And Democrats close to the White House say that Trump’s grip on Republicans may be motivation enough.
So it seems that Trump’s run would fuel a Biden response.
In order to run again, though, Biden has to make it to the finish line of his first term.
The Horn editorial team