Explainer | What if Joe Biden doesn’t run again in 2024?
- Aides have said that US President Joe Biden, almost 80, plans to run again in 2024
- Biden choosing to cede to someone else, however, raises its own thorny issues
The US midterm elections on Tuesday will do much more than shape the next two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, they’ll help determine whether he will run in 2024 as well, political analysts and advisers believe.
While a new president’s party historically suffers losses in Congress during the midterm election, Biden, nearly 80, faces extra scrutiny.
He and advisers have said as recently as November 2 that he plans to run again, and that they’re already making plans. White House officials expect him to run as well.
But a wide margin of Democratic losses would be viewed as a rebuke of Biden’s presidency, and increase pressure on him to cede the role to someone else, some Democrats say.
“I think we’re due for a generational shift,” said Thomas Alan Schwartz, a presidential historian at Vanderbilt University. “I think the midterms could be decisive on that level. If the Democrats lose badly, I think you may see a fairly strong push for Biden to take himself out of 2024.”
So who’s the candidate?
Vice-President Kamala Harris is currently the Democrats’ top alternate candidate, Democratic officials tell Reuters, with most polls showing her second after Biden, and well ahead of most other oft-mentioned names.