Politico: Joe Biden is running!
If there were any remaining doubts about President JOE BIDEN running for a second term, the president’s upcoming travel plans should lay them to rest.
He’s running, people. And some Democrats view Biden’s pre-State of the Union address calendar, which is starting to take shape, as the soft launch for it. His aides don’t even dispute that.
Biden will appear at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in New York City next Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the event. On Friday, he’ll deliver a speech at the DNC’s two-day gathering in Philadelphia, as will Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, and both will attend another DNC fundraiser there, according to three people familiar with that event.
These activities, a top political aide to the president allowed, are “indeed the typical actions of a president preparing to run for reelection.”
Not so fast, say the voters of New Hampshire, in a shocking but not surprising new poll, with numbers that would appear inconsistent with how the White House frames the record of Joe Biden as an enormous success that should warm the hearts of Democrats – even ones who live in a state whose historical role in the presidential nominating process is being downgraded by the same Joe Biden.
A new Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found 82% of progressives and 57% of liberals, groups that usually dominate the Democratic primary there, probably or definitely do not want Biden to run again next year.
"This is stronger than the animosity that there was towards Lyndon Johnson back in 1968," a time of intense opposition to the war in Vietnam, notes, survey director Andrew Smith. His poll found that if the primary were held today, Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, would beat him, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders breathing down his neck.
More from the poll:
Amid uncertainty about the fate of the 2024 New Hampshire Democratic primary, two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters don’t want President Joe Biden to seek reelection. Biden is statistically tied with several 2020 rivals, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, all of whom are more personally popular than Biden among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire.
Which leads us to today’s clickbait listicle:
THE TOP TEN REASONS JOE BIDEN MIGHT NOT SEEK REELECTION IN THE END
10. A personal health issue.
9. A family health issue.
8. Hunter’s legal issues.
7. Wants to spend more time with his family.
6. Wants to make legislative deals on issues like entitlement reform and immigration that he could perhaps better do as a one-termer.
5. Mortality.
4. The documents with classified markings controversy.
3. Jill wants out.
2. His poll numbers.
1. If Tony Bobulinksi is telling the truth.
I still hear nearly daily from friends of Joe Biden who tell them he’s running, even as these same friends doubt that he will.
In the modern history of the presidency, there has never been anything like this – an Oval Office resident this old, with a decided lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy (and not just in New Hampshire; check out his support among the young), propelled forward towards a second term both for the most normal of reasons and for the most bizarre and unorthodox ones.
I remain on this question exactly where I have been since September of 2022: My head 100% says he is running, while my gut says it is 12% he is running.
Only time will tell.
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I don’t know yet what to think about Donald Trump and Meta, except that his reinstatement makes it even more likely he will be the Republican nominee.
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