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WASHINGTON—President Biden formally announced on Tuesday that he is seeking a second term, arguing that American democracy still faces a serious threat from former President Donald J. Trump.
In a video that flashed images of a crowd of Trump supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the president said that “fighting for our democracy” was “my first term job.” ‘, but said it was incomplete while his predecessor mounted a campaign to return to his old office, which Mr. Biden suggested could jeopardize fundamental rights.
Biden used Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” to describe the former president’s allies, saying, “Across the country, MAGA extremists are lining up for bedrock freedom.” I’m trying to steal it,” he said. “Cut the social security you’ve paid for your whole life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Tell women how they can make decisions about health care, ban books, ban who All the while making it harder for you to get them to vote.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said I was fighting for the soul of America. And we still are.”
The official declaration finally put an end to lingering concerns over Mr. Biden’s intentions, effectively clearing the way for another nomination for the president, preventing an unexpected turn of events. Mr. Biden has repeatedly and consistently announced his intentions to run, but delaying his kickoff by months has sparked renewed speculation. His team is now able to put together a formal structure for the campaign organization and raise funds.
Biden named Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser and granddaughter of iconic labor leader Cesar Chavez, to head the election. Quentin Falks, the Democratic operative who most recently led Senator Raphael Warnock’s 2022 re-election campaign in Georgia, will serve as her chief of staff. However, the operation is expected to be overseen by an aide from the White House.
Biden described himself as a “bridge” to the next generation in the 2020 campaign, which some interpreted as suggesting he would serve only one term. I’ve concluded that I’m not actually ready to pass the torch yet. His decision was driven by antipathy toward Mr Trump and his belief that he was the Democrat best placed to stop the former president, who has been charged with crimes and has been twice impeached, from retaking the White House. partially promoted.
In running again, Mr. Biden is asking Americans to trust him, who holds power as commander-in-chief well past the age of 90. At 80, Biden is already the oldest president in American history, and if he wins, he will be 86 by the end of his second term, nearly nine years older than Ronald Reagan when he left the White House. become. At 76, Trump is not young, but if he returns to the Oval Office and ends his new term at 82, he will outlive any president but Biden. .
By the time Biden officially launched the campaign, he looked like a virtual lock to win the party’s nomination. Many Democrats hoped he would yield to a younger candidate, but no formidable challenger to the nomination has emerged. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of assassinated iconic senator, vocal vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy, and self-development after his 2020 campaign fell through before the first vote took place Writer Marianne Williamson announced a long-shot bid, but barely posed. A clear threat to the sitting president.
If Biden and Trump meet again next year, it will be the first back-to-back presidential run by the same candidates since 1956, when Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson twice. Also, since Theodore Roosevelt attempted a revival with Woodrow Wilson’s victory in his three-way election against his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, in 1912 This is the first time that his predecessor has filed an objection.
Biden leads a more united party than potential challengers, but many Democrats privately worry that the president isn’t ready for the next race. ing. His overall approval rating remains just over 42%, according to a poll compiled by political website FiveThirtyEight, making him 10 of the last 13 presidents who have completed their terms at this point. is below
Polls show most Democrats have a favorable opinion of Mr. Biden, but a majority want him not to run again. According to his NBC News poll released this week, 70% of him, including 51% of Democrats, said he should not seek his second term. He cited his age as a factor, with 7 out of 10 respondents saying they didn’t want him to serve another 4 years.
Biden and Trump face an eye-opening rivalry, with recent polls by Yahoo News, The Wall Street Journal and Morning Consult showing the president slightly ahead. A poll by The Economist and Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies trails him. some points. Biden faces an equally mixed outcome against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s strongest challenger in the race for the Republican nomination.
Biden’s announcement represents the unlikely final chapter in a long life in public office, the fourth time he’s taken off his hat to the presidential ring, possibly starting with his election to the new party. It’s the last election campaign in a career spanning more than half a century. 1970 Castle County Council.
After 36 years in the Senate, eight years as Vice President, and campaigning in the White House in 1988, 2008 and 2020, Mr. Biden is one of the most recognizable figures in American life. became. As well as his habitual gaffes. And yet the brusque, traitorous, cross-aisle dealmaker struggles to translate decades of goodwill into the unified presidency he promised.
Biden worked the narrowest partisan margins in Congress and scored the most ambitious legislative victories of any modern president in his first two years, including a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package. . His $1 trillion program to rebuild the country’s roads, highways, airports and other infrastructure. A major investment to combat climate change, lower prescription drug costs for the elderly, treat veterans exposed to toxic burns, and build the nation’s semiconductor industry. Some of these bills passed with Republican votes.
In the process, he has mobilized NATO and other partners around the world to revitalize rival international alliances under Mr. Trump and to confront Russia’s unilateral aggression in Ukraine. With bipartisan support, he pledged more than $100 billion to arm the Ukrainian military and help its government and people survive the Russian onslaught.
But his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after 20 years, in line with an agreement with the Taliban that Trump has attacked, means that in 2021 militant extremists will take over the country and Afghans will take off from Kabul America. This led to a catastrophe in which they were swarmed by planes and fled. During the retreat a suicide bomber killed his 13 American soldiers and his 170 Afghans.
Biden also struggles to secure the US Southwest border, where illegal immigration has surged, stabilizing the economy after a pandemic that saw inflation rise to its highest level in 40 years and gas prices soared. I succeeded. recording level. Both have started to decline and unemployment is nearing historic lows, but economic uncertainty continues to haunt many Americans.
Perhaps most frustrating for Biden, his hopes of healing the rift widened under Trump have so far been dashed. Anti-Semite.
Critics of the president say Mr. Biden is causing divisions because of Mr. Trump’s attacks on “ultra-MAGA Republicans,” and they paint him as a socialist who seeks to destroy the country. Whoever they nominate, Republicans hope to challenge Biden next year by tying him to the country’s economic problems and portraying him as a reckless leader captured by the party’s left-wing activists. ing.
Even as Mr. Biden postponed the official kickoff for re-election, his team quietly made plans for the next campaign. Top advisers such as Anita Dunn, Stephen J. Ricketty and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon will oversee the campaign from the White House, but the operation’s official headquarters will almost certainly be Will, Delaware, under the direction of Ms. Chavez Rodriguez. Placed in Minton.
But it will be very different from any campaign Biden has ever run. His first two bids for the White House fell apart by the end of the first caucuses, long before social media and modern tech were ubiquitous, and his 2020 campaign Distorted by the Covid-19 pandemic, it kept him largely isolated at his home in Delaware.
This time around, the aide said he planned a strenuous campaign travel schedule but would rely heavily on digital communications that bypassed traditional news media. Will be complicated by the fact that he has been criminally charged by local Democratic prosecutors in New York on charges of concealing hush money that was stolen and is being investigated by Biden’s own Justice Department, Congress Jan. 6, 2021. Attacked the Capitol and illegally refused to hand over classified documents.
Biden has been publicly silent about Trump’s legal troubles, but former President Biden has attempted to denounce the incumbent, accusing him of using the judicial system against him out of partisan animosity. Biden’s own handling of classified documents is being investigated by a special counsel, and his son, Hunter Biden, is being investigated by a separate federal prosecutor, although that evidence has not been released.
Mr. Biden’s strategists are betting on the idea that Mr. Biden is adamant about returning Mr. Trump to the White House, even though he recognizes that he started the campaign with a lot of vulnerability. If they face another Republican, they plan to argue that whoever wins that party’s nomination must adopt the same radical stance as Trump.
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