President Joe Biden will run for president once again in the 2024 election, with Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate. On April 25, the 46th president officially announced that he would run for re-election with Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. Biden, 80, announced his campaign with a three minute video, focused on his desire for freedom in America. “When I ran for President four years ago, I said we are in the battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.”
His message continued, “I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection. I know America and I know we are good and decent people. I know we are still a country that believes in honesty and respect, and treating each other with dignity. We’re a nation where we give hate no safe harbor. We believe that everyone is equal and that everyone should be given a fair shot to succeed in this country. Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms and stand up for our right to vote and our civil rights. This is ours. Let’s finish the job.”
The campaign announcement comes after many weeks of Biden promising that he would run again, although he never formally announced his campaign, although it is typical for an incumbent president to run for a second term. Biden did promise to run again during an interview with Today during the White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday, April 10. “I plan on running,” he said. “We’re not prepared to announce it yet.”
Before Biden announced, First Lady Jill Biden did say that she would support him in another presidential race, while also saying that he intended to run again in a February interview with CNN. “It’s Joe’s decision, and we support whatever he wants to do. If he’s in, we’re there. If he wants to do something else, we’re there too,” she said. “He said he intends to run. So, nothing’s been planned yet. I think he’s been so busy with being in Ukraine, handling some of the crises at home.”
During the first term of his presidency, Biden has focused on a wide range of issues. Besides the war in Ukraine, he’s also appointed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. He’s also promised to continue fighting to protect abortion rights, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in June 2022. He also signed the Respect For Marriage Act into law in December 2022.
Biden was elected as the 46th president during the 2020 election when he defeated former President Donald Trump, who served just a single term following his 2016 win. Despite Trump’s false claims that the election was “stolen,” Biden took office in January 2021.
Besides Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson have announced campaigns for president challenging the president for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican-side, Trump has announced another run for office, while he’s also facing investigations from a Georgia grand jury and the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and his taking of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago. Trump will also face a criminal trial in New York after being charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying documents. Besides Trump, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Congressman and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley have all announced campaigns for the Republican nomination.