Likely Biden reelection bid gives GOP choice: Fresh face in 2024 or rematch
Haisten Willis
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President Joe Biden appears all but certain to seek a second term even if an announcement remains months away.
If true, that news effectively freezes the field for Democratic hopefuls for another four years, and it will cause ripples on the Republican side as GOP candidates gear up to launch their own campaigns.
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“It’s no surprise that the president is going to seek reelection,” said Democratic strategist Michael Stratton. “It’s my belief that he is stronger now than he’s ever been based on the results of the midterms. ”
The still-recent midterm elections proved relatively successful for Biden and Democrats, who only gave up nine seats in the House and even gained one in the Senate. Attention has quickly refocused toward 2024, with Politico reporting that Biden has effectively decided he’s going for reelection.
The State of the Union address is expected to double as a kind of soft launch for Biden’s campaign, and he’s speaking at Democratic National Committee fundraisers in New York City and Philadelphia ahead of it.
The Philadelphia speech will come just before the DNC is expected to vote on the 2024 primary calendar, which was revamped to move Biden-friendly South Carolina to pole position.
An announcement could come in late March or early April.
Revamped primary calendar or not, interviewees for this story did not expect Biden to face any high-profile challengers from his own party the way that Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush did.
“Republicans will have to assume that Biden is going to be the nominee,” Stratton said. “One of the things they’ll deal with internally is deciding who is best to beat Biden. Right now, Biden is the champion, and you have to beat the champion to be the champion.”
Polls conflict as to who is best positioned to do that.
The leaders on the GOP side appear to be former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), though there are other figures, such as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to consider.
An Emerson College poll released this week found that Biden trails Trump in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, 41% to 44%. The same poll found Trump leading DeSantis 55% to 29%, though other polls have found that DeSantis beats Trump in a head-to-head GOP primary.
Biden’s approval ratings have been stuck in the low 40s for months, yet his biggest liability may be his age. Already the oldest president in history, he’d be 86 years old at the end of a second term.
That will be less of a factor against Trump, who is just four years Biden’s junior, than it will against DeSantis (44), Haley (51), or Pompeo (59).
“The American people are ready for generational change, and that should be good for DeSantis,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “But the more Biden’s attacks on Trump boomerang, the classified documents imbroglio being a perfect example, the better off Trump is.”
Feehery describes Biden as both the strongest and weakest Democratic candidate. He’s strong due to incumbency and a strengthening economy but weak because he’s “old and barely sentient and getting worse every day.”
Trump has already announced he’s running for president a third time, while DeSantis is rumored to announce a run around May after the Florida legislative session wraps up.
Kevin Madden, former senior adviser to Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) 2012 presidential campaign, says Biden’s decision won’t have much of an impact on the Republican field one way or the other.
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“All the prospective Republican candidates will operate on the assumption that an incumbent president runs for reelection,” he said.
Madden notes that voters likely aren’t ripe for a Biden-Trump rematch, which again may be bad news for the former president. But he expects the race to be close both in the GOP primary and the general election.
“We’re living in a bitterly divided country right now, and the American electorate has used the last two election cycles to decide a presidential contest and congressional majorities by the narrowest of margins,” he said. “The 2024 race will be close as well.”