DNC chair says Biden will run for reelection in 2024: ‘We’re going to win’
Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, tells theGrio that he's confident in the Democratic Party's chances of retaining the White House in next year's election.
Democrats are on a high after President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, signaling a renewed enthusiasm for the president’s expected 2024 presidential reelection campaign.
By all accounts, Democrats and White House staff believe Biden’s primetime speech to more than 24 million Americans put him in a position of strength, particularly after confidently navigating through some tense exchanges with Republicans who booed him throughout.
As Biden and his administration work to promote his accomplishments thus far and his vision for the next two years, they are also hoping to work against recent polling that suggests most Americans — including Democrats themselves — are lukewarm about a Biden presidential run in 2024.
Despite the fact that the president and the White House have repeatedly said he intends to seek reelection, there continues to be a question in political circles about whether Biden will actually do so.
In a recent interview with theGrio, DNC chairman Jaime Harrison reiterated that Biden intends to run, basing his assertion on conversations he has personally had with the president and Biden’s public statements. While it’s not yet clear when Biden will announce his 2024 campaign, he will discover that the Democratic National Committee is “fully equipped” and ready to assist him, Harrison said.
On whether he thinks Democrats have a good chance of retaining the White House in next year’s election, the DNC chair said emphatically, “We’re going to win.”
“We have a plan which we have been executing, in a flawless manner, to continue to deliver for the American people,” said Harrison. By contrast, he described the Republican Party as “a circus.”
He added, “We have a concrete plan on how we will continue to deliver for the American people. So I’m very bullish … but we just got to put in the work. That’s what we’re going to do and that’s what we have been doing.”
To date, former President Donald Trump and former Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton have officially declared their run for the Republican presidential nomination. Other Republican names have been floating around as possible candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — and most notably — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Referring to it as “team extreme,” Harrison dismissed the Republican presidential field. “What I worry about is not whether or not we can beat these folks — because I believe we can. I worry about the impact they will have on American democracy,” said the former South Carolina U.S. Senate candidate.
Harrison especially called out DeSantis for his recent ban on teaching Black history in public classrooms and Haley, who hails from his home state. “Look at what DeSantis has done in the state of Florida; banning books, even books about Hank Aaron and Martin Luther King and all types of things. Going after the teaching of African-American history,” he said. “I mean, where are we?”
Haley, he noted, has “doubled down” on the “craziness” of DeSantis and other leaders. “She just recently talked about CRT. I don’t even know if she knows what that means. What is it that you don’t want us to teach our kids?” he said. “It is sad to see how this Republican Party has devolved into something that is not even recognizable … these folks are un-American.”
Making a clear contrast between Republicans and Democrats, Harrison said, “They are not about who we are.”
He continued: “They are anchored in the past … On the Democratic side … we believe that our better days are ahead of us.”
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