President Joe Biden expressed confidence he would defeat former President Donald Trump in potential rematch in 2024, even as Biden has yet to say for sure if he’ll seek a second term.
“I’m not predicting. But I would not be disappointed,” Biden said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 television when asked if he would predict another race against the former president, whom he defeated in 2020.
Biden said one of the main reasons he ran for president was to unite the country but conceded he still hasn’t accomplished that goal. Asked if finishing that job would be his platform for re-election, the president responded, “Oh, no — that was my original campaign. So, we’ll see.”
The nation’s mood has turned sour thanks to worries about the economy and inflation, which have put Democrats in position to lose control of Congress in the November midterm elections and triggered doubts about another Biden run in 2024.
The consumer price index rose 9.1% from one year earlier, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday, the largest increase consumers have seen since the end of 1981.
Just 33% of voters nationwide approve of Biden’s job performance, and 64% of Democrats said they would prefer that someone else become their party’s presidential nominee in two years, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday. Only 13% of American voters said the nation was on the right track, the lowest point in the poll’s records since the 2008 financial crisis.
A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday charted Biden’s approval rating at the lowest so far of his presidency: 37% of U.S. adults said they approved of how he is handling the job, while 62% disapproved.
Biden has repeatedly said that he sees himself as the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Trump or another GOP challenger in 2024. The Times poll bears that out, with the president leading a hypothetical rematch against his predecessor 44% to 41%.
“The next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” Biden told reporters in March at an emergency NATO summit in Brussels.
Nearly half of Republican voters, meanwhile, said they would cast a ballot for someone other than Trump in the 2024 election, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday.
Trump remains the leading candidate in a hypothetical race against five other possible GOP opponents: 49% of primary voters said they would support him, while 46% said they would vote for one of the others.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis emerged as the top rival, with 25% support, the only one to reach double digits.
