WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Joe Biden launched his re-election bid on Tuesday with a promise to protect American liberties from “extremists” linked to former President Donald Trump, who he beat in 2020 and might face again in 2024.
Biden made his announcement in a slickly produced video released by his new campaign team that opens with imagery from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.
He described Republican platforms as threats to American freedoms, vowed to fight efforts to limit women’s healthcare, cut Social Security and ban books, and blasted “MAGA extremists.”
MAGA is the acronym for the “Make America Great Again” slogan of Trump, who is the early frontrunner in the Republican primary race. If he wins, he will face off against Biden again in the November 2024 election.
Biden, 80, must overcome Americans’ concerns about his age in order to win re-election, with 44% of Democrats saying he is too old to run, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday found.
Trump, 76, also faces concerns about his age with 35% of Republicans saying he is too old.
The poll showed that a majority of registered voters don’t want either Biden or Trump to run again.
While Biden’s approval rating is relatively low, his aides are confident he can beat Trump again. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed him with a lead of 43% to 38% over his Republican rival among registered voters.
Biden’s age makes his re-election bid a historic and risky gamble for the Democratic Party, especially if he faces a much younger Republican candidate.
Democrats already face a tough election map to hold the Senate in 2024 and is the minority in the House of Representatives now.
Biden would be 86 by the end of a prospective second term, almost a decade higher than the average U.S. male’s life expectancy.
In a statement about Biden’s candidacy, Trump criticized the president over his record on immigration, inflation, and the chaotic U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in 2021.
“American families are being decimated by the worst inflation in half a century. Banks are failing,” Trump said on his social media platform. “We have surrendered our energy independence, just like we surrendered in Afghanistan,” he said.
Marking a sharp contrast to Biden’s campaign announcement, Trump is on trial in a civil lawsuit this week over writer E. Jean Carroll’s accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.