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Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he will not run for the presidency in the 2016 election. Biden’s decision came after months of speculation about his possible campaign for the Democratic nomination, which would have likely drawn support away from top Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Standing alongside his wife Jill Biden and President Barack Obama in the White House Rose Garden, Biden said the window has closed on his opportunity to run. Biden mounted two brief and unsuccessful runs for the Democratic nomination, first in 1988 and then again in 2008, before Barack Obama chose him as his running mate in the 2008 election. The vice president’s 46-year-old son, Beau, died of brain cancer in May, and Biden stated publically over the summer that he did not know if he could emotionally commit himself to a run for office. Hillary Clinton’s successful performance in the first Democratic presidential primary debate last week and the subsequent rise in her poll numbers likely contributed to Biden’s decision, according to Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush. “I’m confident that history isn’t finished with Joe Biden,” Clinton said in a statement released after the announcement. Clinton’s campaign will most likely see a bump in poll numbers nationally and in critical states like New Hampshire and Iowa which hold the earliest primaries, Thrush said. Bernie Sanders, who follows Clinton closely in the polls, may also see a small increase in support. Although Clinton will likely seek Biden’s endorsement later on, in many ways his political career has gone as far as it is ever likely to go, according to Thrush. “I think Biden is really an example of when a politician has a moment and they cannot capitalize on that moment, the rest of their career really is a postscript,” he said.Vocab
presidential primary
— elections held in each state to select delegates to attend the national party convention that eventually select the candidates running for president
battleground state
— also known as a swing state, a U.S. state where the two major political parties have similar levels of support among voters, viewed as important in determining the overall result of a presidential election
endorsement
— to give one's public approval or support to someone or something
poll
– a sampling of opinions taken from a selected or random group of people that may be used for analysis
Warm up questions
- Who is Joe Biden?
- What qualifications do you think a person needs to run for president?
- Can you imagine yourself one day running for president? Why or why not?
Critical thinking questions
- How might Biden’s decision not to run for president affect the rest of the Democratic primary?
- Do you agree that Biden’s window of opportunity to run for president closed on him? Explain.
- Do you think Biden made the right decision not to run for president? Why or why not?
