By ZEKE MILLER (AP White House Correspondent)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden, who became president with the goal of stabilizing a country shaken by the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6 insurrection, has secured the Democratic nomination for a second time. This sets the stage for a likely rematch with the former president he holds responsible for destabilizing the nation. convulsed by the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6 insurrection, clinched a second straight Democratic nomination Tuesday and set up an all-but-certain rematch with the predecessor he blames for destabilizing the country.
Biden became his party’s presumptive nominee when he won enough delegates in Georgia. That pushed Biden’s count past 1,968 for a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August, where his nomination will be made official. Former President Donald Trump is expected to clinch the Republican nomination shortly.
Biden, who mounted his first bid for president 37 years ago, did not face any serious Democratic challengers to his run for reelection at age 81. That’s despite facing low approval ratings and a lack of voter enthusiasm for his presidency — driven in part by his age.
Just 38% of U.S. adults approve of how Biden is handling his job as president while 61% disapprove, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden and his allies are betting that over a bruising seven-and-a-half-month general election, his Democratic base and independent voters fearful of a second Trump presidency will stand with him despite their misgivings. Their strategy to constantly highlight Trump’s perceived shortcomings — combined with Trump’s plan to attack Biden in brutally personal terms — sets up an spiritless campaign that many Americans said they didn’t want but will have to decide in November anyway.
Biden has tried to frame the race as a battle for freedom, both at home and abroad. He contrasts his support for Ukraine and work to expand NATO with Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his suggestion that he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies he considers delinquent.
“We face a sobering reality,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday upon clinching the nomination. “Freedom and democracy are at risk here at home in a way they have not been since the Civil War. Donald Trump is running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America.”
He added, “I believe that the American people will choose to keep us moving into the future.”
Biden is pushing back on GOP-led efforts to restrict abortion rights that have also jeopardized in vitro fertilization procedures. Democrats credit the backlash to the Supreme Court overturning a federal right to abortion for electoral victories over the last two years. Trump appointed three of the justices who voted to strike down Roe v. Wade and had taken credit for the decision.
But despite major accomplishments and what his allies see as advantages on key issues, Biden enters a rematch with Trump with vulnerabilities he can’t easily fix.
The legislator in chief
In his first two years in office, Biden signed into law long-term investments in roads, bridges and other infrastructure as well as increasing spending to support the semiconductor industry in the United States. The Senate has approved Biden’s choice for the Supreme Court and named Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to be a justice.
The U.S. came out of the COVID-19 pandemic in an economic boom with low unemployment. After Trump contested his 2020 election loss based on disproven theories about fraud, Biden signed an update of the Electoral Count Act meant to make it more difficult for presidential losers to overturn election results in Congress.
And as Russia began gathering troops on Ukraine’s borders, Biden administration officials cautioned Putin against invading, and then declassified intelligence to garner international support for Kyiv. With support from weapons and intelligence from the U.S. and Western Europe, Ukraine resisted Russian efforts to replace President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a puppet government and has retained most of its territory against its much larger foe.
But the mishandled U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan left lasting images of desperate individuals attempting to escape a country that American troops fought to secure for two decades and lost to the Taliban in a matter of months. Thirteen U.S. troops died in a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport during the evacuation of American citizens and allies.
With the economic growth came soaring inflation that increased basic prices for Americans and eroded the income gains many people made. Inflation has decreased from its peak two years ago, but only 34% of U.S. adults express agreement with how Biden has managed the economy, according to an AP-NORC survey.
And after pledging to reverse Trump’s immigration crackdown, Biden’s White House struggled to process record numbers of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization — sometimes thousands of people a day. Republican states sent migrants on buses to Democratic-led cities that struggled to provide shelter for them.
A matter of age
Biden’s campaign has argued the White House has reduced inflation and suggested border legislation that would give agents new powers to stop migrants that Republicans helped negotiate, only to reject.
But the president can’t change one of voters’ deepest concerns with his candidacy — his age.
Already the oldest-ever American president, Biden would be 86 if he served out the entirety of a second term. Regardless of the November outcome, he or Trump would be the oldest leader ever sworn in on Inauguration Day 2025.
Just hours before securing the nomination, Biden was the subject of hours of testimony from a special counsel who investigating his mishandling of classified documents and concluded that he couldn’t prosecute the president partly because he was too forgetful. The prosecutor, Robert Hur, described Biden in his report as someone who appeared to be “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The president’s age has become a key vulnerability on the campaign trail, although many voters have similar concerns about Trump, who is 77. The latest AP-NORC survey found that 63% say they’re not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president. And 57% said the same of Trump.
In both his State of the Union speech and a new campaign ad, Biden stressed the importance of his experience and added some humor.
As he told Congress last week: “I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever.”
An upset group of voters
Biden argues he’s shown to be a more successful leader than Trump. He and the Democrats also have a significant financial advantage over Trump and the Republicans heading into November, with the president raising $10 million in the 24 hours after the speech.
There’s evidence his campaign’s focus on Trump is already working. Every major Democrat chose not to challenge Biden in the primary, and no Democrat has agreed to join a well-funded effort by the group No Labels to put together a so-called “unity ticket.” to put together a so-called “unity ticket.”
One of the few Democrats who did run before dropping out was Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota. Before Minnesota’s Super Tuesday primary last week, many people upset with Biden said they weren’t aware of Phillips’ challenge or considered it a distraction from beating Trump. they weren’t aware of Phillips’ challenge or considered it a distraction from beating Trump.
Aishah Al-Sehaim of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, said, “It’s not even about hope to affect change in the coming years, but simply that things don’t get more messed up nationally and internationally.”
Biden’s supporters are hopeful that a protest vote campaign over Israel’s war with Hamas will subside by November when liberals and people of color, upset about the more than 30,000 people killed in Israel’s offensive after the Oct. 7 attacks, will be forced to choose between him and Trump. In 2012, then-President Barack Obama also saw a number of “uncommitted” delegates appear from uncontested primaries, especially in conservative states. “In terms of where he is now, he’s been in tougher spots and I know he feels confident,” said longtime Biden confidant and former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman. “I sure feel confident.”
Biden initially ran for the Democratic nomination before the 1988 presidential election, but failed when it was revealed he had plagiarized speeches. His 2008 campaign ended after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, and his 2020 effort was in trouble before he turned it around with a win in the South Carolina primary, ultimately gathering the support of the party.
“Sure beats the hell out of the alternative,” joked Kaufman about the easier path to the nomination this time around. “That doesn’t mean it’s not tough, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t take character.”
Biden has officially secured a second consecutive Democratic nomination. He faces an almost certain rematch with former President Donald Trump.
“Sure beats the hell out of the alternative,” quipped Kaufman of the easier path to the nomination this time around. “That doesn’t mean it’s not tough, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t take character.”
