When Joe Biden was born in 1942, America had just entered World War II. When he first became a Senator in 1973, Richard Nixon was still in the White House. When Biden first considered a White House run in 1988, the Cold War had not yet ended. And when he was finally elected president in 2020, at the age of 78, he was already the oldest occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the man from Delaware isn’t done yet.
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When Joe Biden was born in 1942, America had just entered World War II. When he first became a Senator in 1973, Richard Nixon was still in the White House. When Biden first considered a White House run in 1988, the Cold War had not yet ended. And when he was finally elected president in 2020, at the age of 78, he was already the oldest occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the man from Delaware isn’t done yet.
As Biden announced his bid for a second term, his age is what keeps supporters worried about his appeal, opponents hopeful that his gaffes will give them ammunition, and observers sceptical about his endurance. But while Biden’s age — he will be 86 at the end of a possible second term — will rank as a key issue in a campaign where imagery often matters more than substance, his candidacy illustrates the complexity of American politics at the moment.
Here is what Biden appears to be banking on.
The first is a Donald Trump win for the Republican nomination. After he rejected the presidential election results in 2020 and instigated a mob to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021, many had written off Trump. When Trump’s candidates lost the midterm elections in November, it appeared that that the Republican donor and media ecosystem was finally shifting loyalties to the party’s new star, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. But the recent indictment in New York has given Trump’s campaign a fresh lease of life, as he surges ahead in the Republican field. Each alleged crime makes the former president a bigger hero among his voters.
The Democrats believe that even as Trump’s prospects within the Republican base are improving, his appeal among the wider electorate is diminishing. Trump has now lost four elections either directly or indirectly. In 2018, the party that he led lost the Senate and the House; in 2020, he lost the presidential race; soon after, Republicans lost the Georgia Senate run-off giving the Democrats control of the chamber; and in 2022, Trump’s candidates cost the Republicans a bigger majority in the House and control of the Senate. Trump’s presence on the ballot has consistently alienated three potential Red constituencies — moderate Republicans, independent voters and women in suburban areas — besides unifying the Democrats.
And that is why, even as Biden’s political rhetoric is geared up against who he calls the MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans, his political hope is of a rematch against the face of the MAGA Republicans in 2024. Biden has told aides that he is the only one with a proven track record of beating Trump and believes only he can do so again. This also helps neutralise the age argument against Biden, for Trump will be 78 during next year’s polls. And in case Trump doesn’t get the nomination, he may stand as an independent and splinter the Republican vote, which suits Biden just fine.
The second issue Biden’s team is banking on is abortion. The Republicans had it easier when the call to ban abortions was just a political slogan, for it helped consolidate their “pro-life” base. But political success has been fatal. As the Supreme Court turned back on Roe v Wade, Republican states instituted inhumane limits on abortion, and state courts legitimised restrictions, the “pro-choice” constituency of women, young, independent voters, liberals got galvanised like never before.
And this is reflected in electoral results. Three weeks ago, in Wisconsin, a Red state, voters elected a liberal justice. While Kansas, Kentucky and Montana rejected restrictive abortion provisions in a referendum, California, Michigan and Vermont voted to protect abortion. In the midterms, abortion played a decisive role in preventing a Red Wave.
The Republicans are stuck. They can’t disown the verdict they have fought for, but owning it appears to alienate more voters than they had hoped.
If the first two issues rest on a negative vote against Republicans, Biden’s third plank will be more positive. Agree or disagree, the Democrats have a story to tell about the past two years. This goes on the following lines. On the domestic front, Biden battled the pandemic effectively; he passed unprecedented legislations to encourage domestic manufacturing, build infrastructure, fight the climate crisis, lower medical costs; and he has overseen record job creation. On the external front, he has revived the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), prevented Russia from scoring a win in Ukraine without losing American lives, and focused on China as the next competitor with a whole-of-government approach.
And finally, the Democrats believe they can weave together a multiracial coalition of a majority of Black, Asian-American and Hispanic voters, supplemented with a large segment of educated, urban and suburban White voters to create a robust enough winning coalition in swing states.
All of these four calculations can go awry. Underestimating Trump, who garnered over 74 million votes even in the 2020 election that he lost, could be fatal. Alternatively, a DeSantis win in the Republican primaries can expose Biden’s age and occasional incoherence quite brutally in the campaign. Whether outrage against abortion is enough to offset apathy among Democratic voters, not enthused by the incumbent, is to be seen. If Biden hopes his governance achievements will win him support, critics will throw back inflation as proof of poor economic management. And the multi-racial coalition is not all that solid, with more Hispanic voters, in particular, leaning Republican in recent elections than pollsters had assumed.
With over 550 days to go for the presidential elections, there are too many unknown unknowns that can alter the American political landscape. But what is certain is that Joe Biden, just like his bete noire Donald Trump, isn’t ready to fade into the sunset just yet. Power, after all, is truly addictive.
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