CV NEWS FEED // President Joe Biden has officially declared that he is running for re-election in 2024. He made the announcement in a three-minute video posted on YouTube in the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 25.

An image of a pro-abortion protester holding a sign saying “Abortion is Healthcare” is shown just a few seconds into the video. “Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” the president says following an opening montage. 

“Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” Biden continues. “Dictating what healthcare decisions a woman can make. Banning books and telling people whom they can love.”

Emphasizing “freedom” as the distinction between his record and that of the candidates running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Biden states:

When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are. The question we are facing is whether, in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for re-election.

At the beginning of Biden’s presidential term, CatholicVote launched “The Biden Report,”a “comprehensive examination of Joe Biden’s 47-years in public life from a Catholic perspective.” 

“The report contains citations of interviews, speeches, videos, and media reports on 8 key policy areas of importance to Catholics,” CatholicVote said in its announcement of the report.

Readers can find the Biden Report here, and a regularly-updated timeline of Biden’s presidential record here.

Biden launched his 2024 bid this week despite multiple polls showing that the vast majority of Americans do not want him to run. 

An Associated Press/NORC poll taken just over a week before Biden announced shows that 73% of Americans do not want him to seek another term in office  – compared to only 26% who want him to run. The 73% figure includes a majority, 52%, of Biden’s own party.

An NBC poll found similar results, with 70% of Americans and 51% of Democrats disfavoring a Biden candidacy prior to the announcement. Of the respondents who disfavored a Biden re-election run, 48% indicated that the president’s advanced age was a factor in their decision. Biden, who is the oldest president in American history, will turn 82 two weeks after the 2024 General Election.

As of April 25, the president’s approval rating sits at 42%, while 54% of Americans disapprove of his performance. In addition, a Harvard poll found that Biden’s approval rating with voters between the ages of 18 and 29, a key Democratic voter bloc, was only 38%.

It remains to be seen whether Biden will be challenged by a younger candidate for the Democratic nomination. Currently, his only well-known challengers are Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Marianne Williamson, but both are considered very unlikely to pose a serious threat to the sitting president’s re-nomination chances.

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