Yes, Biden Running Again: Report Says First Lady Plotting Reelection With 'Very Small Group'

Yes, Biden Running Again: Report Says First Lady Plotting Reelection With 'Very Small Group'


President Joe Biden is definitely running for reelection in 2024, according to a report published on Tuesday, and what’s more, first lady Jill Biden appears to be leading the effort.

Barring “unforeseen event,” Biden will run and has been busy laying the next campaign’s groundwork at the White House since September, the Washington Post has reported.

The first lady and a “very small group” of advisers including senior White House aides Mike Donilon, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and Anita Dunn, all of whom were on Biden’s 2020 campaign, as well as White House chief of staff Ron Klain, are involved in the planning, the paper said.

Though Joe Biden could change his mind about running at the last minute, his wife and the inner circle are planning for him to run in the meantime. The report says that the president, who is turning 80 later this month, will likely be more enthused about running if former President Donald Trump decides to do so again.

But some Dem strategists have said they are concerned about Biden publicly delaying an announcement that he will run again until next year, as currently expected, saying that will represent a major disadvantage for his party.

“We are going to have two or three months with essentially one hand tied behind our back because even if we are running at full speed, we still will not have a candidate,” a Democratic presidential strategist told the Post.

“The public indecision of the president is going to dominate all the conversations inside the party,” the strategist added. “And if Trump announces, the hysteria is only going to increase.”

Trump is expected to seek the GOP presidential nomination once again and, according to most major polling, has the best chance of securing it.

The New York Post adds that Biden’s team has reached out to former presidential advisers to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton:

The president’s 2024 brain trust has reportedly reached out to members of the past two Democratic presidential reelection campaigns, including former President Barack Obama’s campaign managers, David Plouffe and Jim Messina, and two former members of the Clinton administration, Bruce Reed and Steve Ricchetti, according to the Washington Post.

The Democratic National Committee has also been making plans to respond on Biden’s behalf to announcements from Trump or other candidates who could announce campaigns shortly after the midterm elections. The DNC has spent more than a year preparing for a Biden reelection campaign, expanding its data operations, investing in battleground states, and researching potential GOP rivals, according to the report.

The Washington Post added that the DNC has put together a budget for hiring new spokespersons for the party in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada, states where there will be early primaries for Republican presidential contenders.

There are no serious prospects to challenging Biden for the Democratic Party nomination, but there are a lot of concerns among the electorate about another four years of his policies.

“More than half of Democratic voters, 56%, think Biden should bow out and not seek re-election in 2024, saying they want a change in the party, a USA Today/Ipsos poll from August found,” the New York Post said.

“A Washington Post-ABC News poll from September also found that 56% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted the party to nominate someone other than Biden as its candidate in 2024,” the outlet added.


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