Biden Officially Enters 2024 Race Despite Poor Polling

President Biden officially ignited his re-election bid with a release of a campaign video early Tuesday morning, framing the 2024 race as the fight against “MAGA Republican” extremism and calling for Americans to choose him again by arguing he needs more time in his battle to fulfill his 2020 vow in restoring “the soul of America.”

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden said in the launch video, which opened with images of the January 6th Capitol riot, pro-abortion rights activists protesting at the Supreme Court.

“Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There’s nothing more important. Nothing more sacred,” Biden continued, depicting Republicans as extremists trying to roll back access to abortion, limit voting rights, and ban books. “Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.”

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer,” Biden added as the voiceover narration. “I know what I want the answer to be and I think you do too. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection.”

The official announcement video from Biden ends any lingering doubts about his intentions to run for re-election and kickoffs a contest that could head into a rematch with his 2020 rival.

It also squashes rumors of Vice President Kamala Harris being replaced given how she was featured prominently alongside Biden, appearing over 13 times in the 2024 launch video. Biden has faced intense pressure to formalize announcing his re-election bid, but the president often appears to push back on questions about his plans. Asked about his plans before leaving Ireland two weeks ago, Biden snapped at reporters when asked about formally declaring running a second bid, stating he will be making the long-awaiting announcement “relatively soon.”

“I told you my plan is to run again,” Biden said as he prepared to fly back to Washington following a four-day state trip to Ireland. “But the trip here just reinforced my sense of optimism about what can be done.”

Biden’s 2024 launch comes four years to the day he announced his 2020 bid where he marked the race as a mission to restore. The president’s fourth and final presidential campaign rested on similar themes that helped Biden win in 2020 and historically defuse a potential red tidal wave in the 2022 midterms by focusing on social issues, attacking Republicans, and warning of the shadow of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump’s potential return for the White House.

Democrats and their voters continue to remain unified in portraying Trump as a threat, a view that helped Biden win the 2020 election, and a case that many expect the president to bolster heavily heading into 2024.

As of now, Trump appears the favorite to emerge as the Republican presidential nominee, creating a potential historic sequel to a bitterly fought 2020 election. However, Trump faces significant hurdles to officially capture the nomination, with several investigations ongoing along with an evergrowing volatile Republican field, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerging as the alternative who is in the best position, according to recent polls to defeat Biden in the general election.

Biden’s quest for a second term comes as he enters the race with low approval ratings that have plagued his presidency for over the past year and a half, a problem that none of his advisers have been unable to reverse. The president’s bid for re-election comes as the nation weathers economic uncertainty, along with lingering criticism of Biden’s handling of major crises plaguing his term, including his administration’s debacle 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

With inflation hitting over 5% for nearly all of Biden’s presidency, averaging 6.3% through Biden’s first 27 months along with the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates to the highest in 17 years as means to tame inflation, a majority of Americans currently believe he is doing a good job. According to the latest aggregate poll by Real Clear Politics, 53.4% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance as of April 24, with 42.4% approval. When Biden took office in January 2021, he had an approval rating of 53%.

When it comes to views about the future of the economy — a top priority in voters’ minds, Americans are largely unconvinced that Biden has what it takes to make good decisions about economic policy. According to Pew Research Center latest April poll, over 61% of voters have low levels of confidence in Biden’s job performance in handling the economy, a view that has not changed since last year.

A career politician who mounted two failed presidential bids before winning in 2020, Biden makes history by becoming the first incumbent octogenarian with more than 50 years of experience in Washington to implore the American voters to reappoint him to another term. Biden’s approval rating at this stage of his presidency in the third year stands at 41% — tied with former President Reagan — in having the second-lowest approval rating of any president over the past 50 years.

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

Another niggling problem Biden continues to bat away but haunts him — his age. Biden, who is now 80-year-old, who will turn 82 just 2 weeks after the 2024 Election Day and would leave office if re-elected at the age of 86, the oldest president in history faces a growing amount of voters questioning his ability to handle the rigors of the job. Recently conducted polls leading up to the president’s big announcement showed Biden kicking off his re-election campaign with lackluster support from Democratic voters, largely driven by concerns over his age. A CBS poll finds 45% of Democrats would prefer that Biden didn’t run for a second term, with 86% of those who oppose cited broadly the focus of his age while 77% stated that they wanted someone new. In the NBC poll, nearly half of those who oppose a Biden run cite his age as a major reason why he shouldn’t run for a second term.

Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee, slammed Biden’s announcement as “out-of-touch.”

“Biden is so out-of-touch that after creating crisis after crisis, he thinks he deserves another four years,” McDaniel said in a statement Tuesday. “If voters let Biden ‘finish the job,’ inflation will continue to skyrocket, crime rates will rise, more fentanyl will cross our open borders, children will continue to be left behind, and American families will be worse off.”

The RNC released a video in response to Biden’s re-election bid, featuring clips and images generated by artificial intelligence to depict an apocalyptic future warning of what is to come if Biden were to win a second term.

The operation is expected to be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden spends most weekends. According to Biden’s advisers, the campaign launch will not prompt a sudden change in Biden’s day-t0-day schedule as President but will consist of a much heavier schedule of fundraising. Democratic officials have laid out a tentative schedule and plans for Biden to begin the active fundraising schedule starting this summer, with the president meeting major donors from his previous campaign in Washington at the end of the week.

On Friday, Biden’s biggest financial supporters planned in Washington, where the president’s top aides will prepare its donors and bundlers to amplify the president’s 2024 campaign messaging and ensure allies are still lined up behind him.

A minor hurdle that might hurt Biden is he currently faces two Democratic primary challengers — self-help guru Marianne Williamson and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy who was assassinated in 1968 as a presidential candidate. While Williamson might not be a serious Democratic challenger, Kennedy, however, is posse to give Biden a hard-fought struggle to retain the party’s nomination without damaging his standing heading to the general election. Kennedy officially launched his bid for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination last Wednesday in Boston, Massachusetts. Ahead of his announcement, polls showed Kennedy gaining over 10% of the support from Democrats.

The Democratic National Committee has made it very clear that the party will be solidly behind Biden as the standard barrier and have no plans to host any type of Democratic primary debates.