President Joe Biden Announces He's Running for Reelection
When Joe Biden announced his candidacy for president in 2019, he said it was a "battle for the soul of this nation." He defeated Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes, securing the presidency with 306 electoral college votes.
Today, Biden announced he would seek reelection."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 says in short video announcement. "This is not a time to be complacent, and that's why I'm running for reelection."
Elsewhere in the video, he says, "Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedoms. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. And this is our moment."
Most incumbent presidents have chosen to run for a second term—with the exception of James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Calvin Coolidge. In addition, both Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson chose not to seek reelection—they were both technically only elected to the presidency for one term, but served nearly two (Truman assumed office when Franklin D. Roosevelt died 82 days into his fourth term, and Johnson when Kennedy was assassinated).
Incumbent presidents typically have an advantage during an election. "Incumbents have the following advantages," says Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian, told NPR in 2012 upon Barack Obama's reelection campaign. "Name recognition; national attention, fundraising and campaign bases; control over the instruments of government; successful campaign experience; a presumption of success; and voters' inertia and risk-aversion."
Donald Trump already announced his 2024 campaign for the presidency, as has Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Asa Hutchinson. Other Republican hopefuls, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, and former vice president Mike Pence, are widely expected to join the presidential race. On the Democrat side, Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have announced their intentions to primary Biden.
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