President Joe Biden officially announces that he and Vice President Kamala Harris will run for reelection in 2024, Harris the first Black and first Black female vice president....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader

Democratic President Joe Biden (right) and Vice President-Kamala Harris after winning election in 2020. The president announced on Tuesday that both he and Vice President Harris will seek reelection in 2024. A former California attorney general and U.S. senator, Harris is the nation's first Black and first Black female vice president

Clevelandurbannews.com

and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

WASHINGTON, D.C.-After much anticipation around his decision whether to seek a second term in office, Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who captured the White House by defeating former Republican president Donald Trump in 2020 in a heated election, officially announced on Tuesday that both he and Vice President Kamala Harris will run for reelection in 2024, a possible rematch of 2020 election since Trump is already the staunch front-runner for the Republican nomination.

The president joins political neophyte Robert F. Kennedy Jr as key Democrats who have announced a presidential run next year and Trump joins Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who has yet to officially announce that he is running, as the two top Republicans in the news slated to fight it out for the job that pays roughly $400,000 annually.

"When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are. The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer," Biden said in a three-minute video announcing his reelection bid. He also said that he is running for a second term to "finish the job."

The president's video highlights the Jan 6 insurrection where Trump supporters, angry over the results of the election, rioted at the Capitol building,  leaving at least seven people dead, including a Capitol police officer, and several others injured. Also in the video, Biden says that if reelected he will continue to fight for the liberties and freedoms of all Americans.

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” the president said 

And while the president's age plagues him as it did in 2020, Biden, 80, must now run on his record as his approval ratings are mediocre at best, approval ratings that can and will likely change during the course of the election The bright side is that he is an incumbent, though so was Trump when he lost reelection. Also, unemployment in the country is down at 3.6 percent, though inflation continues to be a problem for the Biden administration.

Whether voters will flock to the polls like they did in 2020 remains to be seen.  According to voting and registration data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2020 presidential election had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century with 66.8% of citizens 18 years and older voting in the election,

President Biden, like Trump, is expected to fight like hell for reelection, and with the same tenacity and vigor that catapulted him to the White House in 2020. After winning over incumbent former president Trump in the key battleground states that were holding up overall election results, namely Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, Biden, 77 at the time, won the White House in 2020 with 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232 to become the country's 46th president. He also won the popular vote, 81 million to Trump's 74 million votes, and he made history in garnering the most number of popular votes of any American president. 

"I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify. Who doesn't see red states and blue states, only sees the United States," Biden said after winning election in 2020. "I sought this office to restore the soul of America, to rebuild the backbone of this nation, the middle class, to make America respected around the world again, and to unite us here at home."

Finally winning after two previous tries for president, he also spoke specifically to Trump supporters during his 2020 victory speech.

"For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. I've lost a couple of times myself, but now let's give each other a chance," he said. "It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, and listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans."

COVID-19 was a major factor in Trump's electoral college loss, pundits said, hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from the virus at the time of the 2020 election from the disease that has taken the lives of Black people at a rate more than three times that of their White counterparts.

A former long-term U.S. senator who served under former president Barack Obama as vice president for two terms, Biden has long been a favorite son in Democratic political circles. Winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 was all but ensured for Biden when his closest opponent dropped out of the race, U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A socialist  Democrat, Sanders was making his second bid for president after losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton going on to lose the general election to Trump, a real estate mogul and former television personality.

During his 2020 bid for president Sanders, like Biden, was effective in narrowing the more than 28 Democratic candidates down to the two of them.

He nearly won Iowa, coming in second place to Pete Buttigieg, who is now U.S. transportation secretary under Biden. And he went on to win New Hampshire and Nevada. But Biden, powered by the Black vote and an endorsement from Black U.S. Rep James Clyburn, subsequently won South Carolina, and Super Tuesday, and never looked back. Thereafter, the polls continued to dampen President Trump's campaign for reelection and Biden went on to win the presidential race with Vice President Harris, a former California attorney general and U.S. senator and the first Black to run on a major party presidential ticket in America, by his side.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.