The president officially declared his candidacy for reelection

The Age of the U.S. President: The First Year in Biden’s Campaign for a Second Term as President of the United States

The official declaration finally ended any lingering suspense over Mr. Biden’s intentions and effectively cleared the way to another nomination for the president, barring unforeseen developments. While he had promised to run, Mr. Biden delayed his kick off for a number of months. Now his team can assemble the formal structure of a campaign organization and raise money to finance it.

Mr. Biden tapped Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser and granddaughter of the iconic labor leader Cesar Chavez, as his campaign manager. She plans on having Quentin Fulks serve as her principal deputy. But the operation is expected to be overseen from the White House by top presidential aides.

Biden has said that he intended to run for a second term. But even Democratic voters have been lukewarm on him. Biden’s popularity plunged last year, pressured by concerned over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, then by soaring consumer prices.

In offering himself as a candidate again, Mr. Biden is asking Americans to trust him with the powers of the commander in chief well into his ninth decade. At age 80, Mr. Biden is already the oldest president in American history, and, if he were to win, he would be 86 at the end of a second term, nearly nine years older than Ronald Reagan was when he left the White House in 1989. Mr. Trump would be the only one who could last by age other than Mr. Biden.

Mr. Biden appeared to be in a strong position to win the party’s nomination as he began his campaign. There were many Democrats who believed that he would give up the candidacy to a younger one. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the legendary assassinated senator, and a vocal critic of vaccines, have announced long-shot bids, but they seem to pose little threat to the incumbent president.

President Biden will seek a second term as president of the US in the election of mid-twentieth century, he announced on Tuesday.

Biden ran his first campaign on a platform of fighting for “the soul of our nation,” arguing that Trump had stirred up racist and antidemocratic sentiment that was hurting the country.

According to a February NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they had a better chance than anyone else with Biden. A majority of the people said that they wouldn’t have a better shot with someone else.

That alternative, however, never emerged. Both Vice President Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have had worse favorability ratings.

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement that Biden is “out of touch” and blamed him for inflation, crime rates and fentanyl trafficking.

But Biden’s prospects improved after the midterms. Democrats performed better than expected because of their activism around abortion rights, and they did worse than expected because of the toxicity of Trump-backed candidates.

But the pandemic is largely in the political rearview mirror, and the uncertain economy dominates as Americans’ top concern. The economy is an area of vulnerability for Biden. Just 38% of the people who participated in a March NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll said they approved of his handling of the economy.

Overall, Biden’s approval rating, like Trump’s before him, has lagged in the low-40s. It started to fall in his first year in office after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden’s 2024 video features an image of Trump with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a onetime ally and now likely challenger in the Republican race — along with an image of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. — as Biden describes what he calls “MAGA extremists” who he said are “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love. It makes it harder for you to be able to vote.

Biden ended Tuesday’s announcement with the phrase “let’s finish the job” which was a line he used in this year’s State of the Union address.

Biden repeated the phrase 12 times in that speech, talking about how he would help rebuild the middle class, increasing taxes on billionaires, raising antitrust enforcement and funding universal pre-K.

Jim Messina was the campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and he said that it is likely that will be true if Trump is the Republican nominee.

In his video, he said his fight in 2020 to restore the “soul of the nation” was still incomplete, and at risk. At his speech, the biggest applause lines were his vows to defend the country from various perils, not any remarks presenting an uplifting vision for the future.

“It’s been one crisis after another,” said Cristóbal Alex, who worked on Mr. Biden’s 2020 run and in his White House. “The country remains on the cliff. Donald Trump or a similar type of person would cause the country to go over the edge.

The Biden Campaign for 2020: What’s Happening? What Happens When Mr. Biden Visits the White House: His Travels With His Governing Team

The re- election staff is still being built as some of the elements of the campaign were not completed until last weekend. Mr. Biden called Veronica On Sunday to ask her to be his campaign co-chair, she said.

After Mr. Biden won the 2020 presidential election, his team is sensitive to the questions about his age and how hard he has been working for the country. The White House has compiled a chart tracking his travel so far in 2023, and it shows that his number of trips outpaced former President Barack Obama’s in the same time period in 2011.

With the widespread end of coronavirus precautions, Democrats are predicting a return to normalcy on the campaign trail. Phil Murphy, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said that the 2020 race will be an atypical election.

But Mr. Biden’s campaign is hardly seeking to have him dominate the headlines. As he has traveled the country recently to promote his legislative accomplishments, the nation’s attention has often focused elsewhere, especially on the never-ending legal and political drama encircling his predecessor.