The massive gamble Democrats are taking on Joe Biden

He's 80!

On Tuesday morning, Joe Biden announced that he is running for a 2nd term as president.

The announcement wasn’t surprising. Biden had long signaled that he planned to seek a second term in 2024.

But, the decision by Democrats to rally around Biden’s candidacy represents a HUGE risk for a party hoping to keep the White House next November.

The risk is outlined in a new poll released by NBC over the weekend.

Asked whether Biden should run for a second term, a remarkable 70% of respondents said that he should not. That included a majority — yes, a MAJORITY — of Democrats (51%).

And there’s clarity, too, about why people don’t want Biden to run again. He’s too old.

The NBC poll is far from an outlier.

In an AP-NORC national poll released in the last week, half of all Democrats didn’t want Biden to run again — with many citing his age as the main reason why.

“My problem with him running in 2024 is that he’s just so old,” one Democrat told the AP.

“The only reason why I would not want him to run is because of his age,” said another. “Like, that’s the only thing.”

Which is a problem!

Especially because Biden’s age is not exactly something he can change. He is 80 and is already the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president. He will be 82 by the time he would be sworn in for a 2nd term and 86 by the end of that term.

That is, by any standard, old. And it’s not going to change.

Biden’s standard response to questions about whether he is too old to be president is to barely engage with them.

While he has acknowledged that it is “a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old whether or not they’re fit,” Biden has generally dismissed questions about his health and ability with a two-word answer: “Watch me.”

And, there’s no doubt that a major focus of his reelection campaign will be putting Biden in situations where he can look hale and hearty.

Some of that has already been going on. Biden’s secret trip to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymr Zelensky in February is one good example.

The account of the trip was larded with details about how long it took and how Biden was alert and working throughout.

This, from POLITICO, is indicative of the coverage of the trip:

His journey began when he departed Saturday at 4:15 a.m. from Joint Base Andrews aboard a C-32 aircraft, flying to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and then on to Poland’s Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport.

From there, Biden headed to the train station and quickly boarded a heavily-secured eight-car train with its windows drawn for the overnight journey to Kyiv. He arrived just after 8 a.m. Monday, stepping off the train and declaring, “It’s good to be back in Kyiv,” according to a pool report filed hours later, after he’d returned safely to Poland.

It was late! He took a train! Overnight!

You get the idea. You can expect much more of that over the coming months as the Biden campaign team try to combat the idea that Biden simply isn’t up to the job — an idea being heavily pushed by Republicans including former president Donald Trump.

“We are in the most dangerous position we have ever been in as a nation and we have a leader that just doesn’t know what’s going on,” Trump told conservative pundit Mark Levin over the weekend, a not-so-subtle attempt to make Biden’s age an issue. ¹

It’s not just Republicans who are making age an issue, however. This from the editorial board of the New York Times is a telling reminder of just how much Biden’s age will play into the coming campaign:

His most recent health summary, released on Feb. 16, said much the same thing, describing him as a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” But his cognitive abilities went unmentioned. That’s something he should discuss publicly and also demonstrate to the voters, who expect the president to reflect the nation’s strength.

If he runs again, Mr. Biden will need to provide explicit reassurance to voters; many of them have seen family members decline rapidly in their 80s. Americans are watching what Mr. Biden says and does, just as he has asked them to do.

The argument Democrats make is that they really had no choice in the matter. Biden is the sitting president of the United States and, many in the party believe, the only Democrat who can beat Trump in 2024.

Given that, if he wanted to run — no matter his age — he was going to run. And no one could stop him.

Which I think is, generally speaking, true. Despite the fact that polls over the last 2 years have shown that Biden’s age is a MAJOR concern for voters, no one in the party stepped forward to take him on. Heck, with a few small exceptions, almost no one came forward to even raise questions about whether it’s a good idea to nominate an 80 year old man to a job that carries with it a four year term.

Some of that silence has to do with the fact that age — and death — is an uncomfortable topic. No Democrat wants to be the one who notes that actuarial tables on male life expectancy don’t look good for Biden’s chances of serving a 2nd full term. It’s morbid — and a little gross.

But, it’s also a reality.

And that reality gets us back to the massive risk that Democrats are taking on Biden.

It’s possible, of course, that he goes through the entire campaign without a hitch — showing no signs of wear and tear physically or mentally.

But, it’s also possible that Biden stumbles or fumbles on the campaign trail. In fact, as the Times noted last July, there are already signs that Biden is slowing down.

This, from that piece, is revealing:

Mr. Biden looks older than just a few years ago, a political liability that cannot be solved by traditional White House stratagems like staff shake-ups or new communications plans. His energy level, while impressive for a man of his age, is not what it was, and some aides quietly watch out for him. He often shuffles when he walks, and aides worry he will trip on a wire. He stumbles over words during public events, and they hold their breath to see if he makes it to the end without a gaffe.

The rigors of being president are significant. The rigors of being president while also running for a second term are even greater. Which means the asks of Biden — and the strain on him — will necessarily be higher.

And if Biden looks to be struggling on the campaign trail (or in the White House) even for a moment, it will a) be seized on by Republicans and b) stoke already-extant concerns from the public about whether the president is up to the job for which he is running.

Which is a BIG risk.

The American people have told Democrats that they don’t want Biden to run again and that the main reason they feel that way is because they believe him to be too old to be president.

Biden and his party have effectively ignored those warnings and instead gone charging ahead with a sort of damn-the-torpedoes approach. Which is an interesting strategy when the whole goal is to win over the public.

The problem with Biden’s “watch me” response to the age question is that that is exactly what people will do over the coming months. Democrats are placing a HUGE bet that the president can withstand the scrutiny.

1. Trump, at 76, is no spring chicken. It remains to be seen whether he can successfully litigate the case that Biden is too old when he is only four years the president’s junior.