Age, Inflation: Challenges For Biden, 80, As He Announces Re-Election Bid

New Delhi: 

US President Joe Biden announced today he will seek a second term in 2024, plunging at the record age of 80 into a campaign that could set up a rematch against Donald Trump.

He launched his pitch in a video released by his new campaign team, in which he declares it is his job to defend American democracy. Biden said he was still fighting to save American democracy from Republican “extremists.”

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we’re in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “Let’s finish this job. I know we can,” he added.

Biden’s age makes his re-election bid a historic and risky gamble for the Democratic Party, which faces a tough election map to hold the Senate in 2024 and is the minority in the House of Representatives now.

Biden is the oldest person to have occupied the White House and would be 86 at the end of a second four-year term. Sixty-one per cent of registered Democrats in a poll said he was too old to work in government.

Doctors declared Biden, who does not drink alcohol and exercises five times a week, “fit for duty” after an examination in February. The White House says his record shows that he is mentally sharp enough for the rigors of the job.