Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said Tuesday that he will support President Joe Biden if he seeks another term – but didn’t say directly whether his former colleague should do so.
‘I have said if he runs, I’ll support him,’ Schumer said on a day when Democrats were able to get 17 Republican votes to advance a Biden priority, during a year when other key Biden initiatives were stalled.
Schumer was responding to a question about whether Biden should run in 2024, at a time when polls show many Democrats say he should not.
A new University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday had just 20 per cent of respondents in the state saying Biden should run, with just under a third of Democrats saying he should run.
‘I have said if he runs, I’ll support him,’ said Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer when asked if President Biden should run again
A New York Times / Sienna College poll released this month showed nearly two-thirds of Democrats preferred someone besides Biden as the party nominee.
Biden, who is isolating in the White House on Day 5 after testing positive for COVID-19, has said repeatedly he intends to run. In March Biden said he would be ‘very fortunate’ if 2020 rival Donald Trump runs against him.
His approval ratings have hovered in the low 40s for months.
Schumer was first elected to the House in 1981, and he and Biden served together in Congress for decades.
Trump was in D.C. Tuesday delivering a fiery speech to the America First Policy Institute’s summit. It was his first time in Washington since he skipped Biden’s inauguration days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Trump delivered a series of slashing attacks on Biden, a day after Biden tore into Trump.
On Monday, it was Biden tearing into Trump in a virtual speech before black law enforcement executives at their conference for inaction on Jan. 6.
President Joe Biden has said he plans to seek reelection if he remains healthy
‘The defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,’ Biden said.
‘The police were heroes that day. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act,’ the president said.
Schumer’s comment came on a day the UNH poll had Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tying his boss in a poll of Granite State voters.
Buttigieg is at 17 per cent and Biden is at 16 per cent in the new University of New Hampshire poll, which asked likely Democratic voters about potential 2024 candidates.
Trailing far behind is Vice President Kamala Harris at 6 per cent.