The White House has repeatedly said that Mr. Biden, 79, the oldest president to be sworn into office, intends to run for re-election. A person familiar with the president’s advisers’ thinking said they are planning on him running and that the private conversations have matched the public statements. The current discussion is that an announcement would happen after the midterm elections, likely sometime in the spring of 2023, this person said.
That means it will likely be several months before the decision is official, during which Democrats could shift their views on their 2024 preferences. An announcement of another White House bid by former President Donald Trump could also affect the calculus of Mr. Biden and other Democrats…
Key Democrats also said they doubted many top-tier candidates would try to push Vice President Kamala Harris aside if Mr. Biden chose not to run, and early polls suggest she would likely be the initial front-runner in such an event. But her own poll numbers aren’t better than Mr. Biden’s, and Democrats have mixed views of how strong she would be leading a ticket. And some noted the party’s nomination fights in 2016 and 2020 included strong runs by liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who has ruled out running against Mr. Biden but not Ms. Harris.
Speculation among Democrats has touched on other 2020 contenders—Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—as well as Biden infrastructure czar Mitch Landrieu and Govs. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Gavin Newsom of California, who has been taking a more assertive national role in sparring with Republicans on issues like abortion.
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