President Biden is pushing his expected 2024 campaign kickoff even later in the year — and may even delay it until this fall, according to a new report.
Advisers and close allies to the oldest-ever president told Axios they don’t expect Biden to formally announce his candidacy before this summer — despite their initial suggestions late last year that he would announce soon after the start of 2023.
The second political fundraising quarter ends June 30, giving Biden plenty of time to rake in donations before an announcement — and some members of his team are pushing to hold the launch until sometime in the third quarter, according to the outlet.
If Biden decides to wait until then, he would be breaking with precedent set by his four immediate predecessors, all of whom launched their re-election campaigns in the second quarter of their third year in office.
Donald Trump announced his re-election campaign on June 18, 2019; Biden’s former boss Barack Obama announced his bid for a second term on April 4, 2011, George W. Bush declared he would seek a second term on May 16, 2003, and Bill Clinton announced his re-election campaign on April 14, 1995.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report comes amid speculation Biden may eventually sit out the 2024 race, though Biden, his inner circle and the White House have all repeatedly denied the claim.
First lady Jill Biden said in February that her husband would seek a second term.
“He says he’s not done,” the 71-year-old said of the president. “He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important.”
The first lady reportedly began preparations for the 80-year-old incumbent’s run in September of last year, along with White House advisers Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon.
Polls have repeatedly shown voters are skeptical of Biden’s ability to serve out a full eight years in the White House due to his age and concerns about his cognitive abilities.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, gave Biden a nearly clean bill of health following a Feb. 16 physical exam, but did not take questions from reporters about the commander-in-chief’s mental acuity.
In March, the White House announced Biden also had a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest during the annual physical.
The president has frequently stumbled over his words in public and once even forgot that a member of Congress, Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), had died — asking “Where’s Jackie?’ at an event weeks after he publicly acknowledged her passing and offered condolences to her family.
Biden’s delay may have been prompted by the indictment of his potential 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, who will be arraigned in a Manhattan court on Tuesday on charges of having made “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
Since Biden currently faces no significant Democratic primary challenge, he could be biding his time in an effort to contrast his leadership with the conflict surrounding the Republican Party over Trump’s indictment.
One Biden adviser, however, told Axios, “No Republican candidate or potential candidate will affect our timing.”
News of Biden’s campaign deferral also comes during his standoff with House Republicans over raising the federal debt ceiling — which prompted Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to call out the commander-in-chief last week.
“With each passing day, I am incredibly concerned that you are putting an already fragile economy in jeopardy by insisting upon your extreme position of refusing to negotiate any meaningful changes to out-of-control government spending alongside an increase of the debt limit,” McCarthy said in a March 28 letter to the president.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Monday told Politico that Democrats were “willing to entertain a mix of things on the budget. Not on the debt ceiling.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress in January that the debt limit would need to be increased by June at the latest to avoid a default expected to devastate the US economy.
By: Ny Post
