About 10 months ago, President Joe Biden announced his presidential bid for a second term in the White House in 2024. But not all Democrats have been optimistic about President Biden seeking the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.
And now, Michelle Obama has made it clear she won’t be swooping in and saving the party as some hoped.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” Crystal Carson, director of communications for Obama’s office, told NBC News in a statement. “Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”
Concerns in the Democratic Party about Biden’s age and low approval ratings have raised some important questions: What other Democratic candidates could challenge him? And what would happen if Biden dropped out of the race?
However, no major Democrats have decided to publicly challenge Biden, and he has continued on the campaign trail, launching attacks on former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in 2024. And arguably, Trump has been taking jabs at Biden during every campaign event or rally.
As for Biden unexpectedly suspending his campaign, voters would have to choose from the few Democratic candidates already in the race in most states. Ballot access deadlines, which are determined by individual states, have already closed in the majority of states, The New York Times reported. That means it would be tough to expand the options for Democrats to choose a different nominee.
In a scenario where Biden exits the race after amassing a substantial number of delegates, no active candidate could secure a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. If he withdrew his campaign between the primaries and the convention, the Democratic Party would select its nominee on the floor of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in August. The convention is scheduled from August 19-22, in Chicago, Illinois.
Other than the incumbent, the short list of Democratic candidates who have officially filed for the Democratic nomination are U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and book author and “self-help guru” Marianne Williamson, who recently in February decided to drop out of the race.
Phillips, a three-term Democratic member of Congress, announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election in October 2023.
Before his political career, he worked his way up at his family’s business, Phillips Distilling, according to his campaign website.
Phillips said he believes America is unaffordable, and he wants to do something about it, which is why he’s seeking the nomination. His campaign is focused on four main issues: tackling the high cost of living by supporting workers and businesses, improving community safety by addressing mental health and drug issues, investing in young people, and making politics less divisive by pursuing policies like term limits. Phillips has been recognized as the second-most bipartisan member of Congress, according to his campaign.
Meanwhile, another candidate running for president is environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced last year he’s running as an independent instead of a Democrat. Kennedy, who is from a prominent Democratic family, has struggled to gain traction in the Democratic Party and is considered more favorable to Republicans than Democrats. Allies of both Biden and former President Donald Trump have questioned whether Kennedy would be a threat.
Although Kennedy’s poll numbers were favorable when he first launched his campaign last year, he’s lost favorability since then. ” As he ensnared himself in controversies, more Democrats learned about his beliefs, and far-right Republicans invited him to testify before Congress,” The Week reported.
Kennedy’s campaign messages have been centered around several key points, including fighting “corporate corruption” and a system that doesn’t serve the people, unifying Americans, cleaning up the government, and earning back the people’s trust.
In a video announcing the campaign, Kennedy said, “We will scale down the war machine and bring our resources home. We will rebuild our water systems, repair our roads, modernize our railroads, and clean up our environment.”
