Jill Calls Joe Biden Plans to Advance in the 2024 US Presidential Election, But Hasn't Decided on a Declaration Time

President Biden with First Lady Jill Biden. (Wikimedia Commons/The White House)

JAKARTA - The first lady of the United States said that her husband, President Joe Biden, plans to run for a second term in the 2024 presidential election, but has not yet made plans for an official declaration.

Jill Biden, asked by CNN about her husband's plans on a recent trip to Namibia and Kenya said she hoped her husband would announce the campaign and dismissed questions about whether the 80-year-old Democrat would choose not to run in 2024.

"I support him, of course," said the first lady, whose opinion is seen as crucial to the plans for the next president.

She made even stronger statements to the Associated Press on the trip, when asked if the president would seek re-election.

"How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it?"

Whether Biden should run in 2024 continues to be a source of debate within the Democratic Party. The re-election will test whether voters are ready to give Biden, already America's oldest president, another four years in office.

President Biden himself has said repeatedly he intends to seek re-election and dismissed questions about his age, but has yet to make a formal statement.

"We still have a lot of things to get done in the near future before I start the campaign," he told ABC's David Muir at the White House.

President Biden said last November he would decide by early 2023 whether or not to run again, though his announcement is now not expected to be made until spring.

To date, President Biden has not faced a major challenger, and he has shown no urgency to formally re-announce his candidacy.

President Biden spent the early weeks of this year in a controversy over classified documents, and recently, his focus on foreign policy including an unannounced trip to Ukraine has dominated his schedule.

Cedric Richmond, a former adviser to Biden in the White House, said President Biden would announce "whenever he is ready", when asked whether the announcement would be in March or April.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party strategist Bud Jackson said the issue of whether Biden should run again was a topic of great debate among the Democratic Party.

"Almost everyone I spoke to was concerned about his age," Jackson said, adding "almost everyone I spoke to gave him the benefit of the doubt that he should still run."

The polls show concern about his age among some Americans, as Biden will be 86 at the end of his second term.

Some 46 percent of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month said the phrase "Joe Biden is too old to work in government" best describes the president, with 24 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents doing so.

71 percent of respondents, including 52 percent of Democrats, said they were unsure that Biden would seek re-election in 2024.

Separately, on the Republican side, former President Donald Trump, who will be 78 years old by the time the 2024 election, and Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and former governor of South Carolina, have so far declared themselves candidates for 2024.