Biden Formally Announces He Will Run for President in 2024

The incumbent president has no serious rivals within the Democratic Party U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday officially announced his plans to seek re-election in 2024 and asked voters to give him more time so he could “finish the job” he started when he took office. He also asked Americans to put aside fears about giving the nation’s oldest president four more years. The president announced his plans in a video message that was released Tuesday morning by the White House. “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “The question before us is whether we will have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.” “This is not a time to be complacent,” the president added. “That’s why I am running for re-election.” Biden, who would be 86 by the end of his presumed second term, is betting that his legislative accomplishments in his first term and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will matter more than his age. He has no serious rivals within the Democratic Party, but he faces an uphill battle to retain the presidency amidst a severely divided country. The announcement came on the fourth anniversary of a similar one when Biden declared that he would enter the race for the White House in 2019. At that time, he promised to heal the “soul of the country” amid Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency, but that goal was never achieved. Biden's political stature in his party stabilized after the Democrats performed better than expected in last year’s midterm congressional elections. The Republicans have a 76-year-old Trump as their favorite for the nomination, which sets up the possibility of a historic follow-up to the tumultuous 2020 campaign. But Trump faces serious hurdles, including the fact that he is the first former president to face criminal charges.