President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that if he runs for reelection in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris will be his running mate.
When asked by a reporter if he was happy with Harris' job leading the White House's voting rights initiative and whether he would commit to putting Harris on the ticket again, the President simply answered, "Yes and yes." Following an op-ed in which Biden proposed replacing Harris with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Harris rejected a query about whether she'd be on the ticket in 2024 in an interview with NBC last week.
Biden commits to Harris as running mate
Still, it's unclear whether Biden intends to run for president again in 2024. Mistakes by Harris, whose supporters say she is underappreciated as a political asset and overexposed to complex subjects, have prompted deeper reflection on the Democratic Party's future.
Harris has repeatedly stated that she and Biden have not discussed whether the 79-year-old would seek reelection in 2024. In a December interview, Biden reiterated his intention to run for reelection in 2024, but he did leave some wriggle space in his response, according to CNN.
After defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 election, the US President was inaugurated in January 2021. Biden created history when he named Kamala Harris as his vice president, making her the first woman to do so. Biden will be 80 years old when the election takes place on the first Tuesday in November 2024. A running mate is a person who runs on a joint ticket with another person during an election.
Kamala Harris' approval ratings drop
Biden defended his administration during a news conference held one day before his first anniversary in office. He claimed to have "outperformed" expectations and chastised Republicans for opposing him. He also claimed that he did not make many promises to the American people when he first took office.
Because Trump has intimated that he would run in the next election, Biden might face another difficult race. In February of last year, Trump intimated that he "may decide to beat them again." The former US President delivered a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in which he attacked the Democrat who defeated him in the 2016 presidential election. Trump hinted in his address that he would run for president in 2024, as per Express.
Harris, the first woman and the first Black and Asian American to be sworn in as vice president, appeared to be the successor apparent at first. However, her halo has fallen amid reports of staff instability, doubts about her status within the administration, and concerns with difficult tasks like minority voting rights and the southern border migration issue.
"I did put her in charge. I think she's doing a good job," Biden said of Harris' voting rights record. Biden urges Congress to pass two major bills that would expand voting rights, impose more onerous conditions on states attempting to change voting laws, and protect election officials from undue influence.
Democrats and voting rights campaigners have championed the measures as a necessary reaction to Republican efforts to restrict voting, particularly among Black and Latino Americans, NDTV reported