Vice President Kamala Harris sparked fresh uncertainty about whether President Biden will run for president in 2024 by revising her previous statements promising he would “quit.”
On Monday, Harris said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, “Joe Biden is running for re-election, and I will be his ticketmate. Point.’
On Wednesday, the vice president’s pool reporter said in an email widely distributed to other journalists, “The White House said VPOTUS wanted to clarify comments she made on CNN a few days ago. When asked if Biden was definitely running, Harris replied, “The President intends to run, and when he does, I will be his ticket mate. We will run together.’
The new statement sounded less confident than the original regarding a Biden-Harris ticket, and it’s unclear why the vice president’s office released less certain language two days after the fact.
A Democrat close to the White House told the Los Angeles Times that Harris’ revision did not indicate that Biden’s plans for running again had changed. Instead, the follow-up statement was to avoid using “trigger words” that would trigger Federal Election Commission requirements for Biden to set up a formal campaign and begin fundraising.
Vice President Kamala Harris has sparked fresh uncertainty about whether President Biden will run for president in 2024 by revising comments she previously promised he would “quit completely.”
On Monday, Harris said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, “Joe Biden is running for re-election, and I will be his ticketmate. Point’
Biden, who would be 81 when he ran for office a second time, is grappling with a mountain of discussions about potential key challengers so early in office compared to other first-term presidents.
Lawmakers within the president’s own party have been reluctant to side with him at this point. Earlier this month, red-hot Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refused to say she would support a Biden 2024 campaign during an interview on CNN.
“If he runs again, I think I’ll — you know, I think it’s — we’ll look at it,” the New York Democrat said. “But for now, we need to focus on winning a majority rather than a presidential election.”
Even conservative West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin didn’t tell the New York Times if he would support Biden, brushing the question off by saying, “We’re just trying to do our daily thing, bro.”
“Trying to do what we have to do is good for the country,” said the senator, who has reportedly taken requests from wealthy donors to run as a third-party candidate in 2024.
But Biden and his team see perceptions that he’s a “lame duck” less than halfway through his first term as a “lack of respect,” the Times reports, based on anonymous conversations with people who speak regularly with the commander in chief.
The report suggests Biden’s allies believe his ability to beat Donald Trump in 2020 is reason enough to support his candidacy, which comes amid ever-mounting indications from the ex-president that he is running for a third time want to run for office.
It cites left-wing Democratic voters’ frustration with party leaders for failing to provide an adequate response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on federal abortion protections in Roe v. Wade picks up.
Many felt that Biden and congressional Democrats fell short of expectations, having had more than a month to prepare since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft op-ed was leaked to Politico earlier last month.
Progressives like “Squad” members Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar have publicly issued broad “vote” messages that have been pushed by the Biden administration without presenting a more detailed plan of what Democrats can do with that support.
Biden adviser Cedric Richmond told the Times that Democrats are also “putting too much into these poll numbers,” which reflect a favorability issue that has plagued the president for about half of his first year in office.
According to FiveThirty Eight, Biden’s average approval rating across a slew of polls on Wednesday is 39.2 percent.
On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger refused to commit to supporting a Biden-Harris ticket in 2024. “I’m looking straight ahead to 2022 and the re-election that lies ahead,” she said.
When asked if Biden was best positioned among Democrats to run against Trump, the congresswoman said, “I’ve made it very clear that I think there are incredible leaders throughout the Democratic Party and that it’s about time to introduce a new leadership.”
The Monday Times report suggests the timing for Biden’s formal re-election announcement would not be before the November midterm elections, a period Trump has teased about his potential bid.
White House officials also cast doubt on challenges said to be coming from current state leaders such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
They told the Times that Pritzker had given Biden advance notice ahead of a recent speech in New Hampshire, a popular haunt for presidential candidates, and that the popular moderate is also courting party leaders to hold the 2024 nominating convention in Chicago.
Newsom’s hype was dismissed as “a politician feeling his oats” after a decisive victory against opponents’ recall efforts.