Biden team ‘engaged in some planning’ for 2024 bid as president mulls a reelection decision
By Betsy Klein, CNN
President Joe Biden’s top advisers are making plans toward a 2024 reelection bid, even as he has not yet made a decision on whether to throw his hat into the ring again.
Senior White House adviser Anita Dunn said Wednesday that planning for a potential campaign is already underway, regardless of Biden’s decision.
“We’re not going to get ahead of the president on this one. He has said he intends to run. We are engaged in some planning for the simple reason that if we weren’t engaged in planning in November of this year, we should be in the political malpractice Hall of Fame,” Dunn told Axios’ Mike Allen at a News Shapers event.
Dunn reiterated that Biden will be making a decision on whether to run for reelection in close consultation with his family, as he has in the past.
“Family has always come first,” she said. “The family is going to be deeply involved in whatever decision he reaches because that’s who he is.”
Biden, who at 79 is the oldest president in American history, said late last month that he intends to run but has not formally made that decision.
“The reason I’m not making a judgment about formally running or not running, once I make that judgment, a whole series of regulations kick in and I have to be — I treat myself as a candidate from that moment on. I have not made that formal decision, but it’s my intention — my intention to run again. And we have time to make that decision,” Biden told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart in an interview at Delaware State University.
The President tends to keep a lighter public schedule than his predecessors, which has led to questions about how extensive a campaign he’d engage in.
Many Democratic leaders, operatives and officials are cautiously warming to the idea of Biden running for reelection, dozens of high-ranking Democrats told CNN in late September.
But just like many voters and donors — as poll after poll shows — they’re still not sure he should do it, or that he will.
People in and around the President’s orbit would like him to make a decision by early 2023, after he comes back from his traditional Biden family Christmas, possibly by Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
First lady Dr. Jill Biden previously said that she and her husband had “not yet” discussed his plans.
“Not yet. We’ve been a little bit too busy. So, not yet,” Biden told NBC’s “Today” in a sit-down interview in mid-September. “But, I’m sure it will be a discussion.”
The-CNN-Wire
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