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President Joe Biden’s team is kicking the can down the road again on announcing his official decision on running for re-election in 2024.
According to a new report from Axios, which cited people close to the president, Biden is going to hold off announcing for a while longer, perhaps by June or even later this fall.
“Biden’s waiting game has left many ambitious Democrats and would-be staffers with their 2024 plans on hold. They initially thought Biden would launch a campaign soon after the Christmas break, after talking with his family,” the outlet reported. “There’s no indication Biden has changed his mind about running for re-election. But if he ultimately chooses to bow out, the late decision could provide an advantage to Vice President Kamala Harris if she wanted to run for president — and it could foreclose options for other Democrats.”
The outlet went on to report that Biden’s campaign has yet to even higher a campaign manager or finance chairman, along with other top positions.
Axios said that a source close to the White House said waiting has “advantages,” such as allowing Biden to contrast his leadership style “with the chaos in the Republican Party,” though it’s unclear what GOP chaos the source refers to — unless it has to do with the legal issues surrounding former President Donald Trump, who formally declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination in November.
“No Republican candidate or potential candidate will affect our timing,” an adviser for Biden told the outlet.
“There’s no mechanism pushing Biden to announce his re-election campaign soon. And there’s no sign he will,” Axios reported.
Despite numerous reports over the past year that Biden may move on from his vice president, Kamala Harris, in 2024 due to a range of issues with her and between them, a report published this week said that their band wouldn’t break up ahead of the coming election cycle.
“The first woman vice president is gearing up for another national campaign despite low poll ratings, a failure to win over the Washington establishment, and concern among fellow Democrats about an underwhelming start in the job,” Reuters reported on Thursday. “Harris heads into a high-pressure situation as Biden, now 80, moves toward an unprecedented run for a second term as the first octogenarian in the Oval Office.”
Their 2024 re-election bid will be influenced by the possibility of Harris succeeding Biden if he becomes ill or unable to fulfill his duties, given her position as the vice president. And that’s what have Democrats concerned, according to insiders.
According to Democratic sources, while President Biden and Vice President Harris have a good working relationship, there are frustrations about some of her work within the administration. Additionally, Biden is reportedly convinced that neither Harris nor any other potential Democratic candidates would be able to defeat former President Donald Trump if he runs as the Republican nominee in 2024. This belief has influenced Biden’s inclination to run for a second term, a former White House official told Reuters.
“If he did not think she was capable, he would not have picked her. But it is a question of consistently rising to the occasion,” said the former official, speaking on anonymity. “I think his running for re-election is less about her and more about him, but I do think that she and the Democratic bench (are) a factor.”
Dropping Harris, who is not only the first black but also Asian-American vice president, could lead to Biden losing crucial votes.
“You cannot replace your first Black woman vice president and think that Black people and women are going to just vote for you,” the former White House official said. “He needs her.”
Nevertheless, Democrats have admitted in recent months that they have lost hope in Harris, with some telling the media that she has become a liability for the 2024 presidential election.
The New York Times reported in late February that Harris is struggling to “define her vice presidency and that even her allies are tired of waiting.” The outlet added that more and more Democrats are beginning to agree that Harris is a disappointment at best.
“But the painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around the nation — including some who helped put her on the party’s 2020 ticket — said she had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country.”
Even some Democrats who were supposed to be supporters of Harris “confided privately that they had lost hope in her.”
