Yes, Joe Biden is Running for President

President Joe Biden (D-DE)

Public polling this far out from an election is almost always a joke.  Polls have the ability to move considerably, and if something is defying conventional wisdom, more than likely it will find a way to revert back to the norm before long.  But one thing that's been bugging the crap out of me is the polling that has come out repeatedly polling where they're testing a Democratic primary without Joe Biden.  This is not worth the clicks that it's getting, and were it not for the fact that serious news organizations pick up on it incessantly, I probably would just ignore it, but I'm going to say this once-and-for-all: barring an act of God, Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 2024.  Here's why.

For starters, Joe Biden is the incumbent president, and the incumbent president always runs for reelection. In the past 100 years, only three presidents have voluntarily given up the White House without running again: Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson.  In all three cases, these men inherited the White House when their predecessor passed away, and all of them had stood (successfully) for one election, so this would've put them (had they won) into a third term in office, which is already atypical (only Franklin D. Roosevelt successful sought such a term, and only Ulysses S. Grant attempted to win a third term, and he tried it non-consecutively).  Coolidge was arguably the only one of them that would've stood a sure shot at winning (Truman & Johnson left office unpopular) and didn't care for Washington, and the other two wanted to hand over the reigns of their presidency after difficult second terms.  But every other president, EVERY one, ran for a second term.  The only reason that Biden wouldn't is because of his age (which he has spent much of the past four years actively fighting against his critics on, to concede now would tarnish his legacy) or his health (by all accounts he's in good health, albeit not quite the form he was in 20 years ago).

Biden would've also sent signals by now, because he knows how the world works.  More than any president in American history, Biden understands politics (he's got 50 years practice), and understands that an early retirement would be something that his party would have to defend.  Every statement he makes for the remainder of his term would be scrutinized, and there would be near constant speculation over whether he'd resign.  After all, if he can't run for reelection, should he hold office at all?  Biden's age would become a huge issue in the campaign, to the point that he would go beyond a lame duck and become something of a pariah.  Quite frankly, if Biden was seriously not going to run, you'd be hearing more concern about him retiring early from office by now.

Biden also knows that waiting this late and not running would be detrimental to the party.  People like Donald Trump & Ron DeSantis are going to be raising tens of millions of dollars before anyone even casts a vote in Iowa & New Hampshire.  That'd be the same case for Democrats, and Biden, very much a Democrat to his core, wouldn't want to saddle the eventual nominee with a situation where they have to play catchup with Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.  He will want them to have their A-Game on, and were he not going to be the nominee, he'd have stepped aside shortly after the midterms, taking his position as a lame duck so that the other Democrats can get into the race.  Some might argue he could wait so that his preferred candidate could get the nomination, but his relationship with Kamala Harris, while likely not as temperamental as the political gossip rags make it out to be, doesn't appear to be the unusually close bond he had with President Obama, and so I doubt he'd pull a fast one on his party to help Harris disproportionately.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)

Because that is what would happen.  At this point in the game, despite what polling says, it would be very, very difficult for any challengers to beat Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination in 2024.  Polls will show glossy names like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, & Pete Buttigieg, but I'll be honest-the nervousness that the Democrats would have, having to defend Biden, would make it hard not to go with the most obvious choice (Democrats do not like risk).  Particularly given that Biden would be choosing not to run when most anticipated he would, there would be so much speculation that he'd resign that the Democrats would be fools not to go with the woman that might be their incumbent president.  And her potential opponents, knowing that as the incumbent she'd be basically unbeatable (it's how the bully pulpit works, ladies and gentlemen), probably would skip the race.  She'd have some opponents, but honestly most major Democrats would step aside, knowing it was too late to beat such a juggernaut.  Harris's ability as a presidential candidate is debatable (I think she'd do better than she polls, but she's not the natural politician that Biden is, and four more years in the White House & crafting a public persona might do her some good), so I'm not going to weigh in on her chances, but I do think that Harris 2024 is a path that most Democrats would like to avoid.

And when it comes to 2028, any current polling now isn't worth the paper it's scratched on-what people think five years out from an election will not hold.  People like Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren will be too old to run, especially after Biden, and other major names from right now won't have the same resonance in 2028 should Biden win reelection.  Harris, obviously, will have a leg-up in the primary, but other Democrats will not defer to her.  We have a misconception on whether Vice President's have a clear shot at the White House largely because Al Gore handily defeated Bill Bradley in 2000, but Dick Cheney & Joe Biden didn't run as sitting vice presidents so we don't have a lot of modern examples, and George Bush spent much of early 1988 getting humiliated by Pat Robertson & Bob Dole.  A sitting Vice President trying to get their administration a third term is a good bet for a nomination if the administration is popular, but if not...names like Raphael Warnock, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigeg, Gretchen Whitmer, Jon Ossoff...hell, some names we likely don't even know yet...will start to come up against Harris.  This will honestly be better for Harris if she actually wants to pull off the difficult move of getting a third consecutive term for her party-a competitive primary that she comes out on top of will better exhibit her strengths-and if she loses, it'll show the Democrats they saved themselves some trouble.  But that's 2028.  In 2024, while the Republican question remains open, the Democratic one (can you hear me media?) remains closed-the nominee is Joe Biden.