President Biden exuded confidence as the next race for the White House draws closer.
During last month’s State of the Union address, he lured unruly Republicans into agreeing with him that federal rights must be protected. He has ramped up travel outside Washington, touting job-creation in Wisconsin and increasing federal health care spending for seniors in Florida, while touting a trillion-dollar public works package, Which they say could do everything from revitalizing the Port of Baltimore to easing train tunnel congestion under the Hudson River.
And he used espionage-thriller tactics to infiltrate war-torn Ukraine.
For most presidents, these are powerful elements to include as the centerpiece of a re-election campaign – a pledge to protect the people and the economy at home and democracy in the heart of Europe. But the famously fickle 80-year-old Biden has stopped short of officially announcing his 2024 candidacy, leaving him ample room to drop out of the race and instead use such moves to cement his legacy. focusing.
“I look at Biden from the outside, as a historian, and say, ‘Boy, if he gets away now, his place in history is secure and exceptionally positive,'” said the director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Jeffrey Engel said. Methodist University in Dallas. “That’s how a normal person thinks about these things. That’s not how the president thinks about these things.
Those close to Biden insist he is not legacy shopping and that he will make a campaign announcement, possibly this month after the first quarter campaign fundraising period ends. The party has cleared a path for Biden’s re-election with rivals to his left, including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, pledging to support the president’s re-election.
Bestselling self-help author Marianne Williamson is formally launching a primary challenge to Biden on Saturday, who is being largely shunned by the party.
The Democratic National Committee unanimously expressed “our complete and utter support” for Biden’s re-election. Party leaders are not planning a primary debate, arguing that now is not the time to schedule a debate that pits Biden against Williamson or anyone else.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week, first lady Jill Biden said there was “not much” left for the president to do but choose a time and place to announce his re-election bid.
“How many times does he have to say that for you to believe?” He asked.
Still, there are indications that even though the prevailing belief among most Democrats is that Biden will seek another term, the decision is not yet final. Even Jill Biden was more reticent in subsequent interviews when assessing her husband’s political future.
“It’s Joe’s decision,” she told CNN, noting that she personally is “all for it.”
“If he’s in, we’re there,” he said. “If he wants to do something else, we’re there too.”
After the AP interview, the president joked to ABC that he needed to call his wife to “find out” if he was running again.
The president told the network, “his intent” has been to carry on from the beginning. “But there are a lot of other things we have to finish in the near term before I can start my campaign.”
While Biden’s standing among Democratic officials is solid, actual voters seem more wary. A recent poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found just 37% of Democrats want Biden to seek a second term, up from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections.
Biden’s age has been a major concern since the early days of his first campaign. Already the oldest president in US history, he will be 86 by the end of a second term, should he win one.
If Biden avoids a run, the biggest question is whether the party can quickly cobble together someone else. Much of the early focus will be on Vice President Kamala Harris, who has already said she hopes to be on the Biden ticket in 2024.
The state remains politically important, however, with Democrats moving South Carolina’s primary to the front of their primary calendar at the behest of Biden.
Other Democrats outside Washington have worked to build Biden’s national profile without angering him. They include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has positioned himself as a foil to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and is seen as a leading alternative to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
While Biden’s plans have come under intense scrutiny, the field for the Republican presidency has also been slow to build. So far, there are only three official entrants – Trump, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Others could join in the coming months, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Some, like DeSantis, could wait until late summer to officially announce their campaigns.
For his part, Biden has a history. He agonized over whether to seek the presidency in 2004 and 2016 before ultimately deciding to sit out of those races. Both times, he noted that instead of actually saying he didn’t want to run, he essentially spent so long deciding that time would run out for the campaign to succeed.
“He is notoriously slow on campaign decisions,” said Andrew Feldman, a Democratic strategist who was involved in Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign and served as part of an advance staff team during his vice presidency. ” “None of this should be a surprise.”
Feldman said Biden is “always thinking about his legacy” but also “getting results for the American people.”
“I think the legacy and the outcome and the re-election are very much intertwined,” he said.
As far as the legacy is concerned, Biden’s allies agree that future governance will never be as smooth as it was when Democrats controlled Congress during the administration’s first two years. They acknowledge that even the president’s now consistently low approval ratings may never return to where they were when he took office.
But advisers to the president say there is no real Democratic alternative capable of defeating Trump or any other top Republican like DeSantis. That’s not to say that Biden doesn’t think about his place in history. In 2021, the president pondered carefully during a meeting with historians in the Oval Office that lasted more than two hours — though those discussions focused more on threats to American democracy than Biden’s personal legacy.
Alan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University in Washington, said, “This is a man who essentially grew up in politics, being involved in high-level politics for several decades as senator, vice president, and then president.” Is.” “He is someone who is particularly concerned with his legacy.”