While most election talk revolves around this November's midterms, Americans already have opinions on the 2024 election and, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, they're not convinced Biden will seek a second term.
According to The Journal, "52% of Americans don’t think Mr. Biden will run for re-election in two years, while 29% do expect him to pursue a second term" and "Nineteen percent are undecided about his future."
When it comes to Democrats, just 42 percent think he will run again compared with 32 percent who don't think he will seek a second term and 26 percent who are "unsure." Not exactly a vote of confidence in their party's leader.
WSJ EXCLUSIVE: Roughly half of Americans don’t believe President Biden will run in 2024, the latest WSJ poll shows. Some Democrats worry that he may be too old to bid for a second termhttps://t.co/XsKxVDGvzF
— Anthony DeRosa (@Anthony) March 15, 2022
This lack of certainty that the incumbent Democrat will seek reelection comes from a number of reservations Democrats hold about their party's leader. "Interviews conducted in recent weeks with dozens of voters, activists and local officials in the nation’s top battleground states, along with poll respondents, found a degree of ambivalence and uncertainty over whether Mr. Biden, who is 79 years old, should seek another term," WSJ reported.
The Journal's poll results are accompanied by comments from a cross-section of Americans:
“You can run for president at 35. I don’t know why we would need the president to be over 75,” said Katie Smith, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Wisconsin-Superior who attended Mr. Biden’s event on the campus earlier this month and is unsure whether Mr. Biden should seek a second term.
Julie Hersch, a 55-year-old Democrat from Millcreek Township, Pa., said that overall Mr. Biden is doing well and she thinks he will run again. But when asked if he should, she said: “I just don’t know. He’s getting up there. I don’t know if it’s the best step for the Democratic Party.”
One Democratic lawmaker who declined to be identified by name said members watched the State of the Union hoping Mr. Biden wouldn’t make a mistake. “Everybody was very pleasantly surprised with the State of the Union address and breathed a sigh of relief when it was over,” the lawmaker said.
“I don’t think President Biden is going to run—not simply because of his age, but he’s been doing this for a very long time. You can hear it in his voice. You don’t hear the same level of energy and enthusiasm,” said Derrick Jackson, a Democratic state legislator from Georgia who is running for lieutenant governor.
It's hardly surprising that Democrats aren't all-in for another Biden term. Moderates who supported him in 2020 seeking what the left has dubiously characterized a "return to normal" have seen only chaos and financial pain. Those on the far-left are — as demonstrated by members of The Squad — outraged that Biden hasn't done more to enact their radical agenda. And for most Democrats, having Joe Biden as their leader is as exhausting as Biden often looks. The gaffes in speeches, international embarrassment following botched foreign policy, and record setting inflation all make supporting more of the same for an additional four years rather unappealing.
For his part, President Biden has stated repeatedly that he intends to run for president again in 2024, but that's as much political posturing as anything else — a president announcing that he won't run again before the midterms in which Republicans are favored to reclaim majorities in Congress would make Biden a lame duck for the final two years of his term.