Should Joe Biden run for re-election? A LGM discussion

The purpose of this thread is to discuss what in my view is a question that merits serious consideration, especially by Joe Biden.

To get things started, I’ll list what seems to me the best arguments for and against:

FOR

(1) The Biden administration has on the whole been very good on both policy substance and procedural competence (the latter factor is often underrated when evaluating chief executives).

(2) The incumbency advantage (but see below).

(3) Avoiding a divisive and uncertain primary battle.

(4) For various reasons, Biden may be uniquely well situated to defeat Donald Trump, who is almost certainly going to be the GOP nominee.

AGAINST

(1) Age. This is by far the biggest negative consideration. The average 82 year old man has a 30% chance of dying over the following four years. 85 year olds are 300% more likely to develop dementia than 75 year olds. Biden appears to be in much better health than the average 80something man, but on the other hand stress is terrible for health, and he has the most stressful job in the country. The safest thing I think is to treat those two factors as more or less balancing each other out, and to treat the actuarial averages as roughly valid predictors in this individual case.

(2) Biden is not popular. His average approval rating has been in the low to mid 40s for more than a year now. (Caveat: under current conditions the highest possible approval rating for a president outside a 9/11 type situation is probably in the mid-50s). Furthermore, it’s difficult to establish that any incumbency advantage exists in modern presidential politics. Six of the 12 presidents who were eligible for another term since the passage of the 22nd amendment have not been elected to that term.

(3) Given the nature of the contemporary Democratic party coalition, having a white man in his mid-80s in the presidency is, all other things considered, a kind of symbolic atavism that the party should move beyond. In this context, a primary battle would be a good thing.

(4) Second presidential terms are almost always far less successful than first terms. This probably isn’t random.

That’s just a very preliminary sketch of course. I’m sure you all can fill out further.

One last general observation: I think this is a genuinely difficult question, but if Biden were to decide not to run again, I don’t think that decision could be reasonably criticized. Even if he had done no more than defeat Donald Trump in 2020, he would have done the nation an immense service, and he has of course accomplished far more than that. But if he decides that it doesn’t make sense for him to seek another term, there are all sorts of reasons why that decision should be respected.