After President Joe Biden announced his reelection bid last April, the vast majority of Democratic leaders coalesced around his candidacy, which wasn’t surprising for an incumbent.
But Biden has one of the most unusual backgrounds of any president in US history: He’s been a fixture in Washington for more than 50 years as a Delaware senator, vice president, and now president. And if he’s reelected to a second term this fall, he’d be 82 years old at the time of his inauguration in January 2025 and 86 at the end of a second term.
Biden’s age has become a cause of concern among many voters, including some who are inclined to back him over former President Donald Trump. The worries were amplified after the special counsel Robert Hur released his report on the probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents, in which no charges were recommended, but the president’s acuity and memory were questioned.
Through it all, Biden has defended his reelection bid, argued that his age is an asset, pushed back against the special-counsel report, and articulated why he should be reelected — pointing to accomplishments such as the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act and touting the low national unemployment numbers.
What does this all mean? Biden is unlikely to leave the race, especially as he dominated the Democratic presidential primaries and is committed to a rematch with Trump. But speculation about whether he’ll bow out of the contest continues to swirl.
In the event that Biden does somehow bow out after winning the overwhelming majority of the 3,936 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination, a new nominee would have to be selected at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August. But it’d be a messy process given that the primaries are now completed.
Virtually every major Democratic governor or senator is behind the president’s reelection bid and long ago dismissed the thought of replacing him on the ballot this year.
But who could be a Biden successor if such a scenario were to occur?
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