Vice President Joe Biden doesn’t believe he and President Barack Obama are real liabilities to Democrats running in this year’s midterm elections.
He addressed Obama’s reported promise to stay out of states where vulnerable Democrats are facing tough reelection battles in an interview that aired Friday on CNN’s “New Day.”
“That’s not universally true. In the states we lost, in the states where we lost the presidential race, that may be the case,” he said. “I know I’ve been invited to go into well over 128 races so far. And so there’s some places where the President is considerably more popular than I am, but there are some places where I can go in and the President can’t. There are some places where it makes no sense for me to go in and the President to go in.”
“The reason why I am truly optimistic about this year’s races, no matter what the polls say, one thing they say on every major issue: the public agrees between 51 and 70 percent with the position taken by the President of the United States and the Democratic Party,” he continued. “You give me a chance to have all the issues my way, or have popularity at the moment — I’ll take the issues. That’s what’s going to win.”
Biden also was asked about his presidential prospects. While speaking to the United Auto Workers on Wednesday, Biden joked that being able to drive a car, like a souped-up new Corvette, would be “one overwhelming reason” not to set his sights on the White House. But he told “New Day” that he really couldn’t think of an “obvious” reason not to run for president in 2016.
“There may be reasons I don’t run, but there’s no obvious reason for me why I think I should not run,” Biden said.
A final decision would come sometime next summer, he said, based on whether he is “the most qualified person” for the job.
