Biden says he's 'absolutely' ready to serve two terms as president after DNC boosts his favorability by 5%
In December last year, former vice president Joe Biden hinted to his aides that he could be a single-term president. However, on August 23, the 77-year-old said he will "absolutely" serve two terms if he wins this November poll after he saw a 5 percent polling boost in the wake of the four-day Democratic National Convention that happened last week. Biden, who will turn 78 this November and will be the oldest man to take over the presidency in January if he wins this year’s election, was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the convention that took place virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden appeared for an interview alongside his running mate Kamala Harris on ABC News. When the anchor asked him whether he had plans to serve a single term, the former veep replied with a "no". "You're leaving open the possibility that you'll serve eight years if elected?" David Muir asked Biden, who was being seen as a "transition candidate". "Absolutely," Biden replied as he vowed to end the "darkness" as witnessed in the era of incumbent Donald Trump in his 25-minute acceptance speech on August 20, the final night of the convention.
In 2024, Biden will be 82 and an eight-year-long presidency will see him turning 86 in office. If he wins this year, he will break Trump's record of being the oldest man to become president by almost a decade. Trump became the oldest president in January 2017 at the age of 71.
George H W Bush was the last one-term president
The last time America saw a single-term president in the office was in the late 1980s and early 1990s when George H W Bush assumed power. The Republican, who succeeded Ronald Reagan in 1989 and led the US in the first Gulf War, lost to Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. If Biden wins this year, Trump will be the latest addition to the list of one-time presidents.
Biden’s confidence in completing two terms might be propelled by the fact that his favorability factor has gone up significantly after the convention. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll, which was conducted on August 11-12, the former veep had 40 percent favorability while in the same poll taken on August 21-22, it jumped to 45 percent. The veteran also had a net negative favorability rating before the convention but that too has changed now. Among the Democrats, Biden’s favorability rate rose from 79 to 86 percent after the convention.
When compared to the scenario in 2016, then Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was found gaining six favorability points post convention, as per a ABC News/Washington Post poll. However, although her favorability rate landed at 48 percent, the unfavorability rate still was more at 50 percent. Trump recently compared his past and present presidential competitor to say that while Hillary is smarter, she is less liked than Biden.
Was Biden's one-term presidency suggestion aimed at young voters?
Biden's earlier indication that he could be a one-time president has added significance to the post of the vice president and with a woman picked for the role now, many have anticipated that the country could eventually get its first woman president in the centuries-old history. However, one of Biden's major challenges in this election has been to bring all Democratic supporters under one roof (Bernie Sanders’s supporters, for instance, have resented his candidacy) and the earlier plan for a single-term presidency could have been more as a ploy to convince the younger voters, especially the Left-leaning ones.
But that Biden was not going to make a public announcement that he will serve only one term was something that one of his top advisers put clearly last year. In an article posted by Politico, he was quoted as saying: "He’s going into this thinking, 'I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.' But he’s not going to publicly make a one term pledge."
Harris, who has also seen a favorability boost from the convention, is 55 and has all the time to lead the generational shift from the septuagenarian leader. The California senator had a 35 percent approval rate before the convention and it went up to 41 percent after it, showing even 1 percent more rise than her senior mate.