Noted

Biden officially launches re-election campaign with video seeking 4 more years to 'finish the job'

President Biden launched his re-election campaign Tuesday morning with a video making his case for another four years in office to "finish the job" of restoring America's soul and keeping the country steady in the face of "MAGA extremists." 

"Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There's nothing more important. Nothing more sacred," Biden says in the three-minute launch video. "Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away," he added, pointing to efforts to cut Social Security, abolish abortion rights, limit voting, and banning books. 

Vice President Kamala Harris is featured prominently in the video as well, underscoring that she will be Biden's 2024 running mate. Biden also announced Tuesday that White House adviser Julie Chávez Rodríguez will be his campaign manager and Quentin Fulks, who ran Sen. Raphael Warnock's (D-Ga.) re-election campaign last year, will be deputy campaign manager. 

Biden, who is 80, signaled he will bet that his first-term accomplishments, deep experience in government, and the alarming alternatives will trump voter concerns about his age, The Associated Press reports. A sizable share of U.S. voters, and even many Democrats, have told pollsters they prefer he not run again, but no serious Democratic challengers have emerged to block his path to the Democratic nomination.

Biden is launching his re-election campaign exactly four years after he declared his candidacy in 2019, and about the same time in his first time that former President Barack Obama announced his re-election bid in April 2011. Former President Donald Trump, the 76-year-old current frontrunner for the GOP nomination, launched his unsuccessful re-election bid on the day he was sworn in as president in 2017.