Biden never promised a single term—and it would be stupid if he had

Oh boy, here we go again, with New York Times reporter Astead Herndon on the nonsense “Joe Biden should drop out” wagon. 

“Biden 2020 intentionally signaled this wouldn’t happen during his original run. It mattered and help lessen age concerns at the time,” Hernon tweeted Monday. “To now say ‘ofc the incumbent would run again’ is haughty political insider bs. They gaslit public and may pay for it.”

So did Joe Biden really “signal this wouldn’t happen” in 2020? Of course not. 

Herndon supports this claim with a collage of headlines claiming that Biden was promising a single term. Let’s look at them. 

First is this December 2019 Politico piece, “Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term.”

According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president.

“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

Some random joes who “regularly talk to Biden” made a pretty explosive claim. 

Herndon includes this Vanity Fair piece from that same time: “Joe Biden Hints He’d Be A One-Term President.” But all you need to know about that story is, “the campaign adviser told Politico.” It’s literally pulling the quotes from the Politico story above. 

The next screenshot is this one, from March 2019, which you might note is well before Biden earned the nomination: 

This New York Times story is more about an early vice presidential announcement, though it notes that the idea of a one-term pledge was bandied about by some. Still, it was discarded early. 

“But Mr. Biden is uneasy with the prospect of pledging up front not to seek re-election, believing that it would make him a lame-duck president before he even takes office and cripple his ability to get anything done, according to some of his aides,” the story notes. “He is more open to the idea of picking a vice president well before the customary time frame, which would be around the party’s nominating convention next year.”

This is nowhere near “intentionally signal[ing]” that he wouldn’t run for a second term. 

The final screenshot is this March 2020 story from the Guardian: “Joe Biden positions himself as ‘bridge’ to next generation at Michigan rally.” I challenge anyone to find any reference to serving only a single term. 

“I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” he said in his speech, as he was wrapping up the nomination. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” Nothing about him running for reelection invalidates the idea of himself as a bridge between the horrors of Donald Trump’s presidency and the future of our country. Quite literally, every president is a bridge to the next one. 

So that’s all the “evidence” Herndon (and Nate Silver, eagerly cheering him on) have for the supposed Biden pledge to serve only a single term. Four unnamed people in stories about his campaign before he even had the nomination considered whether any such pledge made sense—then rejected it. 

So what’s the evidence that he didn’t make any such promises? 

There’s this, from ABC News, responding to those December 2019 reports: “Joe Biden denies he is mulling a one-term pledge if elected president.” 

On one side, you have some random people who “regularly talk to Biden” saying one thing, and on the other hand, you have a clear, definitive denial with zero room for alternative interpretations from Biden himself: 

“No, I never have,” Biden said when asked by a reporter on Wednesday if those discussions were taking place. “I don’t have any plans on one term.”

Remember, Herndon claims that Biden “intentionally signaled” he wouldn’t run for reelection. So what gives here? Is this an honest mistake by the Times reporter, or is it something more malicious? Well, thanks to Jamison Foser, we don’t have to guess. 

Herndon directly responded to CNN reporter MJ Lee’s tweet about Biden’s confirmation that he wasn’t limiting himself to a single term. 

“I would suggest that perhaps the actual haughty insider BS is the contention that the general public was closely reading speculative 2019 articles and placing more weight on them than on Biden's direct denials, and those of his campaign,” Foser adds.

Sounds about right. Political reporters saw a couple of blind quotes, decided that was a bigger reality than the clear statement from Biden himself and his campaign that they were not, in fact, limiting themselves with a single term pledge. 

And it would’ve been stupid for reasons I’ve consistently noted: There is no bigger advantage in politics than that of incumbency. Trump was sitting on approval ratings in the low 30s and almost won reelection in 2020. This is certainly an atypical matchup, with two de facto incumbents, but that makes Biden’s advantage even more important. 

There is zero indication that another Democrat would do better, especially since people have the obnoxious habit of subbing in their preferred Democrat as the alternative. Who doesn’t want their ideal magical pony candidate in the race? 

But we live in the real world, with real dynamics, and one of those is that incumbency is powerful. No one can command media and public attention like a sitting president (or the former one). 

So no, Biden never said he’d limit himself to a single term, and no, neither he nor his campaign “intentionally signaled” that nonsense. And no, there’s no magical pony Democratic candidate ready to step in and run away with the election. Trump is competitive no matter whom he faces, and the last thing Democrats need is a nasty fight over a replacement candidate. (And for the record, it would be Kamala Harris, and people would fight her hard, creating some of the nastiest rifts in the party since perhaps the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.) 

Meanwhile, back in the real world, FiveThirtyEight (no longer led by Silver) has launched its presidential model, and it gives Biden a 53% chance of winning. That sounds about right—Biden has the slight edge. 

We’re going to have to work hard to win this one, but that would be the case with Biden or anyone else. 

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