Joe Biden Won on Normalcy. Will That Be Enough for Reelection? [View all]

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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/biden-reelection-campaign-2024

Joe Biden Won on Normalcy. Will That Be Enough for Reelection?
Voters show little enthusiasm for a Biden-Trump rematch. But as the president officially announces a reelection campaign, his promise of steady leadership could once again be his biggest selling point.
By Eric Lutz
April 24, 2023


The question for Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign, which he officially announced Tuesday: Can slow and steady win another presidential race?

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In many respects, he’s earned it. The first two years of Biden’s presidency have been successful on several fronts: He’s advanced a number of Democratic priorities through a divided Congress. He’s helped hold together an international coalition in support of war-torn Ukraine. And, despite tepid polling on his own job performance, his party outperformed expectations in the 2022 midterms—a sign, to the president and his supporters, that most Americans prefer his boring competence to the braying and bullying of the MAGA GOP. “The American people made it clear: They don’t want every day going forward to be a constant political battle,” Biden said in a post-midterm victory lap last year. “The future of America is too promising…to be trapped in an endless political warfare.”
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Even with a strong message, Biden will have to overcome concerns about his age. At 80, he is the oldest man to serve as president of the United States, and will be 86 by the end of his second term, if he wins. He’s so far shown himself to be fit and capable of carrying out the duties of his office, and has brushed off worries about how it could impact his job performance. “It’s legitimate for people to raise issues about my age,” he told ABC News’ David Muir in February. “The only thing I can say is, ‘Watch me.’” But it’s sure to be at least one focus of GOP attacks this cycle, even if his challenger is Trump—a 76-year-old who has faced significant questions about his own cognitive and physical capacity.

Facing Trump, though, would also underscore Biden’s greatest selling point: While he may not be a movement candidate, he is a broadly palatable one. And while the progress he’s pushed has mostly been incremental and uneven, he has sought, with some success, to dam the rising tide of MAGA extremism. That extremism will be on the ballot next year, whether the GOP nominee is an heir to Trump’s movement like Ron DeSantis or the twice-impeached, criminally-indicted former president himself, whose deranged demagoguery has only gotten more intense since his political fall and legal imperilment. Biden has worked to emphasize that those stakes have risen, not diminished, since 2020: “I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote and how you vote,,” he told Americans ahead of the midterms. The country mostly listened in November; Biden and the Democrats hope they’ll do the same next year. “He is a steady hand, when you look at what’s out there right now with Donald Trump and what we’re hearing again,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told CNN over the weekend. “People don’t want that chaos back again.”