President says ‘let’s finish the job’ as he faces uphill task of convincing US voters to send him back to White House
President Joe Biden officially launched his candidacy on Tuesday for the 2024 US presidential election.
The announcement comes exactly four years since he announced his 2020 presidential campaign. But unlike the gruelling primary season he faced last time, Mr Biden is all but certain to lead the Democratic ticket in 2024.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Mr Biden said in his announcement video.
“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.”
The incumbent has spent much of this year highlighting his administration’s accomplishments, while contrasting Republican policies as extreme and out of synch with US voters’ wishes.
He again went after Republicans in his campaign video, saying they have a poor track record on providing healthcare coverage and social security, and promoting women’s rights.
“Around the country, Maga [Make America Great Again] extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away,” Mr Biden said.
But to be re-elected, he will have to convince a wary and weary electorate.
Mr Biden’s polling remains at a dismal 42.5 per cent, FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate shows. And voters are unsure if they want to re-elect someone who would be 82 on election day next year.
Seventy per cent of Americans do not believe Mr Biden should run for office, an NBC News poll on Sunday showed, with 48 per cent of respondents saying his age was a major factor.
An AP-NORC poll released last week showed similar feelings towards the Democratic President, with 73 per cent not wanting him to run again.
‘Finish the job’
Mr Biden’s 2024 campaign will be presented as a case to voters that he must build on the accomplishments he made throughout his first term.
He aimed to do just that at a speaking engagement in Washington, his first since announcing his candidacy. Addressing a crowd of building trade union members, Mr Biden celebrated the number of construction jobs created since he took office.
“Our economic plan is working. We now have to finish the job,” he said.
That refrain is the same line Mr Biden used during this year’s State of the Union address, using the prime-time engagement as a chance to make a direct pitch to US voters.
The Democrat touted his administration’s accomplishments on education, healthcare access, gun control and more. Mr Biden said “Let’s finish the job” or delivered variations of the line 12 times after listing each achievement.
Mr Biden will have the opportunity to continue that messaging as he governs as president. He has continued to call for gun-control reform, though that seems unrealistic with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
He will also probably celebrate continued job growth in the US, though high prices remain on consumers’ minds.
A 2020 rematch?
The 2024 US presidential election could serve as a rematch of 2020 if former president Donald Trump secures the Republican nomination.
But voters do not appear to have an appetite for another Trump-Biden contest. Sixty per cent of NBC polling respondents and 70 per cent of those polled AP-NORC do not believe Mr Trump should run again — or want him to.
Pre-empting Mr Biden’s announcement, Mr Trump on Monday night posted a statement on Truth Social condemning his successor.
“You could take the five worst presidents in American history, and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our Nation in just a few short years. Not even close,” Mr Trump wrote.
The White House has been careful not to discuss the Republican front-runner by name, arguing that doing so would be in breach of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activities.
Mr Trump has spent much of his 2024 campaign railing against numerous investigations into his business dealings, involvement in the January 6 insurrection and alleged hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Investigations into Mr Trump seem to have little effect on what voters think of him. Sixty-eight per cent of those who responded to the NBC News poll believe the investigations surrounding the former president are politically motivated to prevent him from running again.
