Thursday morning, I was on twitter scrolling as I usually do, and all of a sudden I see Joe Biden is trending. I thought It was probably him saying something else or another controversy, but it was his campaign announcement. For months, people have speculated on whether he would enter the race for president. He has steadily led polls for the Democratic Primaries and has been ahead of Donald Trump in several polls if the election were held today.
A lot of people have been watching and waiting for Biden to run for president, and several think he is the key to winning in 2020. After waiting for months, and watching nearly 20 Democrats announce their campaigns for president, it finally happened, Joe Biden entered the race. Several other candidates have never really acknowledged the idea of Biden running and have kept quiet on the matter. Now, they're going to have to face him head-on.
Biden has run for president three times: 1984, 1988, and 2008. 2008, of course, was the year that Barack Obama won, and Biden himself became VP. He flopped in all three of those years and exited the race pretty early. People have been waiting since before 2016 for Biden to run, which would have set up a showdown between him and Hillary Clinton, possibly hindering her chances to be the final nominee.
It almost seems like this was the year that Biden would have the best shot. However, history is not on his side. If you remember, Walter Mondale left office in 1980, after Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in the general election. Four years later, he would become the nominee for the Democratic party. Mondale was trounced in 1984, losing by a margin of 525 to 13 electoral votes. The circumstances this time are a little different. Biden is much more popular and he was Vice President for 8 years, rather than four. Also, his would be opponent is a lot less popular than Ronald Reagan was.
Will Biden win it all? Or will he lose to an outsider? We'll have to wait. Only a few more months until the first Democratic debate.
