Biden announces 2024 re-election bid: ‘Let’s finish this job’

WASHINGTON (AP) :

President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced that he is running for re-election in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” and extend the run of America’s oldest president for another four years.

Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term, is betting his first-term legislative achievements and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will count for more than concerns over his age. He faces a smooth path to winning his party’s nomination, with no serious Democratic challengers. But he’s still set for a hard-fought struggle to retain the presidency in a bitterly divided nation.

In his first public appearance Tuesday since the announcement, Biden offered a preview of how he plans to navigate the dual roles of president and presidential candidate, using a speech to building trades union members to highlight his accomplishments and undercut his GOP rivals, while showing voters he remained focused on his day job.

Greeted with chants of “Let’s Go Joe” from a raucous crowd of building trades union members – a key base of Democratic support – Biden showcased the tens of thousands of construction jobs being created since he took office that are supported by legislation he signed into law.

“We – you and I – together we’re turning things around and we’re doing it in a big way,” Biden said. “It’s time to finish the job. Finish the job.”

Biden’s campaign announcement, in a three-minute video, comes on the four-year anniversary of when he declared for the White House in 2019, promising to heal the “soul of the nation” amid the turbulent presidency of Donald Trump – a goal that has remained elusive.

“I said we are in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

While the prospect of seeking re-election has been a given for most modern presidents, that’s not always been the case for Biden. A notable swath of Democratic voters has indicated they would prefer he not run, in part because of his age. Biden has called those concerns “totally legitimate” but he did not address the issue head-on in his launch video.

Yet few things have unified Democratic voters like the prospect of Trump returning to power. And Biden’s political standing within his party stabilised after Democrats notched a stronger-than-expected performance in last year’s midterm elections. The president is set to run again on the same themes that buoyed his party last fall, particularly on preserving access to abortion.

“Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There’s nothing more important. Nothing more sacred,” Biden said in the launch video, depicting Republican extremists as trying to roll back access to abortion, cut Social Security, limit voting rights and ban books they disagree with. “Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.”

As the contours of the campaign begin to take shape, Biden plans to run on his record. He spent his first two years as president combating the coronavirus pandemic and pushing through major bills such as the bipartisan infrastructure package and legislation to promote high-tech manufacturing and climate measures.

The president also has multiple policy goals and unmet promises from his first campaign that he’s asking voters to give him another chance to fulfil.

“Let’s finish this job. I know we can,” Biden said in the video, repeating a mantra he said a dozen times during his State of the Union address in February.