Joe Biden
Joe BidenREUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US President Joe Biden is readying plans to launch his re-election bid after November’s midterm congressional elections, multiple aides and allies said on Thursday, according to Bloomberg, setting up a potential 2024 re-match with former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s resolve to mount a second White House bid is hardening even with polls showing most Democrats would prefer a candidate other than the 79-year-old president, according to the report. However, those close to Biden describe him as buoyed by recent legislative, economic and foreign policy victories and committed to again deny Trump a return to the Oval Office.

“The president has said he’s planning on running again,” said Anita Dunn, a longtime aide who recently returned to the White House. “People should take him at his word.”

Biden confirmed in an interview this past December that he plans to run for re-election in 2024. That confirmation came after then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki had told reporters that Biden intends to run for re-election.

However, Biden’s popularity has been on the decline. A recent poll found that 64 percent of Democrats would prefer a candidate other than Biden in 2024. 26 percent of Democrats said they would still support Biden in the next presidential election.

A recent CNN poll found that 75 percent of Democratic and left leaning voters did not want the party to field Biden as their candidate in the 2024 election.

An actual announcement on a Biden re-election bid would come in the months after the midterms, but allies say the accelerated coordination with the DNC is the surest public indication Biden is plotting a second run.

As for Trump, it remains unclear whether he will actually run in 2024. While Trump has not publicly confirmed that he is planning to run again, he has hinted at such a run several times.

In a radio interview this past September, Trump said that the only thing that could prevent him from running would be “a bad call from a doctor or something”.

Before that, in an interview with Fox News, Trump said that he has already made up his mind regarding a 2024 run, but couldn’t explicitly declare his intentions because of “campaign financing” issues.