June 1 (UPI) — Although he’s already stated he won’t run for president in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden again became the subject of speculation Thursday when he launched a new political action committee.
Biden debuted the American Possibilities PAC as a vehicle to help Democrats in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
“The history of the journey of this nation is one of ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Biden wrote in a Medium post introducing the PAC. “We’re the people who built the Hoover Dam and the Transcontinental Railroad, landed a man on the moon, cured polio, built the Internet and sequenced the human genome. And yes — soon we will be the people who will find a cure for cancer. Thinking big is stamped into the DNA of the American soul.”
Biden’s new committee and his philosophic words led some to wonder whether he’s rethinking his decision against running.
“It doesn’t mean he’s certain to run,” one person close to Biden told CNN. “But there’s no compelling reason why he would close the door. He’s doing well.”
A popular figure among Democrats, Biden seriously considered a White House bid for 2016 but ultimately chose against it following the death of his son, Beau. In April, he said he won’t be a candidate in 2020 — although he said a couple weeks earlier that he regretted not running last year.
It’s not uncommon for public servants to create political action committees to benefit their party. Vice President Mike Pence created a PAC last month to aid Republican candidates in next year’s mid-term elections.
Though Biden has so far dismissed a 2020 bid, his PAC would allow his campaign to hit the ground running if he had a change of heart.
If he chose to run and won, Biden would become the oldest U.S. president in history — 78 years old by the time of his inauguration in 2021. President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP candidate in 2020, is currently the oldest American commander in-chief, at age 70. He will turn 71 this month.
