WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced that he is running for reelection next year, asking Americans for more time to finish the job he started when he entered the White House and to set aside their concerns about extending the time of America’s oldest president for another 4 years.
The president, who would be 86 at the end of a second tenure, is betting his first-tenure legislative achievements and over 50 years of experience in Washington would count for more than concerns over his age. He faces an easy path to winning his party’s nomination with no big Democratic rivals. But he is still set for a tough struggle to retain the office in a bitterly divided nation.
In a 3-minute video, the announcement comes on the 4-year anniversary of when Biden declared for the presidency in 2019, pledging to heal the “soul of the nation” during Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency — a target that has remained elusive.
Seeking reelection is different this time
While the question of trying reelection has been common for most modern presidents, that has not always been the case for Joe Biden, as a considerable swath of Democratic voters have indicated they would prefer he not run again, in part because of his age — concerns the president has called “totally legitimate” but ones he did not address in the launch video.
Yet few things have unified Democratic supporters, such as the prospect of Donald Trump returning to power. And Biden’s political standing within his own party stabilized after Democrats showed a stronger-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterm elections, as the president set out to run again on the same slogans that sustained his party last fall, especially on preserving access to abortion, AP reported.
Biden said in the launch video “personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There is nothing more important. Nothing more sacred”.
He painted the Republican Party as extremists seeking to roll back access to abortion, limit voting rights, cut Social Security, and ban books they disagree with.
