Skip to content Skip to footer

Biden Says He’s Running for Reelection in 2024, With a Big “If” Added

In the second half of 2021, Biden’s approval ratings slipped into negative territory.

President Joe Biden walks to the West Wing from Marine One on the South Lawn off the White House on November 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

President Joe Biden recently said that he will run for reelection in 2024 under one condition: that he remains in good health.

Biden made comments alluding to running for a second term as president in an interview with ABC’s David Muir.

“Do you plan to run for reelection?” Muir asked Biden this week.

“Yes,” Biden responded, adding that he would only run for a second term if he was in the right physical shape to do so.

“I’m a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times,” Biden said. “If I’m in the health I’m in now — if I’m in good health — then in fact, I would run again.”

Biden also said that a Trump presidential campaign in 2024 would only make him more eager to run.

“Why would I not run against Donald Trump for the nominee? That’ll increase the prospect of running,” the president told Muir.

Notably, Biden’s popularity and approval rating have faced a significant drop since the start of his tenure. On March 1, Biden had an average approval rating of 55.4 percent and an average disapproval rating that was under 39 percent, according to an aggregate of polling data collected by RealClearPolitics. Months later, those averages have flipped: Biden’s approval rating now averages around 43 percent, while his disapproval rating is at 53 percent.

If Biden and Trump do face a rematch of the 2020 election, Biden may not fare well. The president’s net favorability in a recent Economist/YouGov poll is -11 points, while Trump’s is -13. In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll published last month, a majority of respondents (64 percent) said they didn’t want Biden to run again. When respondents were presented with a choice between Biden and Trump, the poll found that Trump would defeat Biden by around 4 percentage points.

Some advocates have said that Biden could reverse this trend by fulfilling promises he campaigned on in 2020. Although his administration recently announced an extension of the student loan payment pause, Biden has yet to fulfill his campaign promise of canceling up to $10,000 of student debt per borrower — an extremely modest measure that would still likely secure more votes from young people.

But the Biden administration has repeatedly said that the president won’t use his executive power to forgive student loan debt, despite the fact that he has the legal authority to do so. Instead, Biden has shifted the blame onto Congress, saying that they should pass a debt forgiveness bill that he could sign into law — a strategy that would almost certainly fail given divisions within the legislative branch and the ability of Republicans in the Senate to block such a measure through the filibuster.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy