“I want to finish the work started. The question we are facing is whether in the future we want more or less rights, more or less liberties. I know the answer I want. We cannot be complacent at this time. And that’s why I’m going to seek re-election“.
(Further: Biden announces he will run for re-election in 2024: ‘We are in a battle’)
With those words, in a short video posted on Tuesday, the US president Joe Biden formally announced that he aspires to remain another four years in the White House and that he will seek the nomination of his party for the 2024 elections.
Although the decision was taken for granted and Biden himself had already telegraphed his intentions -something also normal in the American political system- the confirmation was controversial.
On the one hand, he challenges a good sector of his party that has long been calling for a more progressive and younger representative who reflects the diversity of the Democratic party.
On the other hand, especially among party leaders and directives, there is the conviction that Biden is the most likely to prevent the likely return of Donald Trump for president.
A recent report published by The Washington Post and the accumulated data from the most recent surveys illustrates both points. Titled “Democrats, reluctant to Biden in 2024, but see no other option”, it shows how the electorate faces a kind of ordeal.
For many, Biden, at 80 years old (his second term would start at 82) is no longer at his best and they are concerned about his health and cognitive abilities. Although the “jinxes” in his speeches have accompanied him in almost all his political life, they have increased in recent times.
In addition, since the Democratic electorate is often made up of younger people and minorities, they worry that it will not connect with them and their interests.
To put it in context, it is enough to review the surveys of the last 12 months.
On average, no more than 40 percent of Democrats favored Biden as their party candidate while 57 percent called for someone else..
By contrast, during the years of Trump’s presidency, 73 percent of Republicans supported him for another four years. In the case of Barack Obama that number grew to 75 percent or more.
Although Biden’s presidency has had its ups and downs and it is still too early to know how the United States will fare in the presidential race, his supporters note that the president has restored stability to the country after Trump’s chaotic years in the White House culminated in serious defiance. to the democratic system after the ignorance of the election result and the violent takeover of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Biden may be a boring guy, but I’d rather be boring than chaotic and delinquent
“President Biden inherited the deepest crises in generations and reversed them to deliver unprecedented job growth, the biggest infrastructure investments in 70 years, the new power of Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs, the biggest manufacturing resurgence in modern history and a robust environmental agenda that is second to none,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in illustrating this point.
And to a large extent that will be the axis of his campaign: highlight the achievements and contrast his mandate with what the extreme vision of a Republican party that does not believe in democratic values and is pushing measures -such as restrictions on the right to abortion- takes. That goes against the sentiment of the majority.
“Biden may be a boring guy, but I’d rather be boring than chaotic and delinquent,” Harvey Richards, a resident of Fairfax, Virginia, told this newspaper.
Criminal, he says, because Trump is already being prosecuted for hiding the payment to a porn actress, and she is being prosecuted for a woman who says he sexually abused her, plus other accusations that are pending for tax fraud and his possible intervention in the 2020 electoral process.
In some ways Biden’s 2024 candidacy is also something of a political necessity. When he came to the White House in 2021, the Democrat always indicated that he viewed his presidency as one of transition. And there was speculation that he would step aside to open the way for Kamala Harris, his vice president.
But in these two long years that have passed, Harris has not materialized as his possible replacement, nor has another leader of sufficient stature emerged to replace him. Furthermore, subjecting the party to a multi-candidate nomination process would be like shooting himself in the foot and losing the advantage of current control of the presidency.
By the way, the option of looking for a younger and more modern alternative to Biden depended in large part on the movements in the Republican party. If, for example, the candidacy of someone like Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida (he is 44 years old) would have passed, then it made sense to explore names like that of California governor Gavin Newsom, 55, to compete head-to-head in a generational change.
But with Trump already looming as the Republican pick, there is no one in a better position than Biden to contain him. That is, a second version of the 2020 elections but in reverse.
And one in which the Democrats – at least the strategists – believe they can win because it will be a contest of contrasts. Although Biden’s popularity ratings remain very low (40 percent), Trump’s image is worse (25 percent according to the polling average).
The bet, therefore, is for a candidate who without arousing enthusiasm promises continuity versus another who raises passions but is unpredictable and carries a dark past that can weigh on him among independent voters, who are the ones who generally tip the balance. electoral.
Which of the two narratives will win remains to be seen.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
TIME CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
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