If it’s happening, it’s happening sometime over the course of the next several weeks.
Sources close to Biden indicate that plans for a reelection bid are moving forward and could be made public sometime around late January or, more likely, sometime in February to coincide with the State of the Union Address.
The only wrinkle in the plan, which was resolved last night, is that the President must be invited to deliver the State of the Union speech by the Speaker of the House. Since the Speaker battle took multiple days, the invitation hasn’t yet been sent so there’s no official SOTU date yet.
Either way, says The Hill, plans are in the works:
Multiple sources tell The Hill the president is planning to make his intentions to run for a second White House term public in the coming weeks, likely in February, around the State of the Union.
One source close to Biden’s 2020 campaign with knowledge of the president’s plans said a more formal announcement is expected to come in April.
Behind the scenes, his advisers are meeting with key allies and are putting together an expansive and revamped digital presence.
Biden is moving closer to the official reelection announcement after spending time with his family in St. Croix over the holidays discussing his next steps for another bid, said the source familiar.
The intention to mount another presidential campaign began to crystallize even as some Democrats continue to question whether Biden will run again, mainly because of his advanced age. He turned 80 in November.
“I think it’s all about timing at this point,” said one Biden ally. “It seems like he’s all in. It’s not really ‘if’ he runs anymore.”
What themes will Biden be planning to showcase as the basis for his reelection campaign? Unity and bipartisanship, of course:
One Democratic operative said it was the perfect backdrop to what a campaign kickoff might look like.
“The bipartisan infrastructure event this week is a good soft campaign launch for the president,” said the Democratic strategist.
“It positions Biden’s accomplishments, shows him as a unifier and contrasts him with Republicans who are cannibalizing each other during this messy Speaker fight.”
The President who once called his opponents racist for opposing his voting rights legislation will soon become the great unifier running for reelection in 2024. The theme would fit since that was the same theme he ran on in 2020 before he promptly dropped the masked and embraced every left-wing progressive cause he could find.
Despite the unlikely nature of Biden running again, given his age, story after story continues to indicate an intention to launch a reelection bid.
Maybe there’s a specific reason he’s looking for a grudge match in 2024:
Biden has not been shy about his desire to seek reelection, especially if it turns into a rematch against former President Trump, with his aides and allies often echoing his eagerness around the matter.
Is it Trump’s early 2024 announcement egging Biden into the ring once again? It clearly bothers Biden that Trump thinks he’s a weakened president ever since the Afghanistan pull-out debacle in the summer of 2021.
We’ll know soon enough, February is not far off.
