By
Jonathan
Allen
_
President Joe Biden told the Rev. Al Sharpton during a private conversation at the White House last month that he will seek a second term, Sharpton told his National Action Network staff in Washington that day.
"I'm going to do it again," Biden said as he posed for a photo in the Roosevelt Room with Sharpton, who is also an anchor for MSNBC, according to a member of the National Action Network to whom Sharpton told what he had heard. .
"I will," the president added.
While Biden's allies have already said he will seek re-election, he has refused to say so unequivocally, perhaps in part to prevent campaign finance laws from kicking in.
What he told Sharpton at the end of a meeting with the leaders of several of the country's most prominent civil rights organizations represents a stronger assertion that he will be back on the ballot.
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NBC News has asked the White House for comment on Biden's purported post-2024 presidential aspirations.
Black voters were key to Biden's resurgence in the 2020 primary, helping him win the South Carolina race after he failed to win first place in the first three contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Three days later, Biden's overwhelming support among black voters fueled his landslide victory on Super Tuesday that gave him an insurmountable delegate lead.
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It was in reference to the 2020 race that Biden confessed to Sharpton during their Sept. 2 White House meeting that he planned to run again.
During a group chat, Sharpton reminded Biden that the two had sat down for a chat during an event to mark Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in 2019. At the time, Biden had not yet declared his candidacy and was seeking endorsements. from Sharpton, or at least a promise that it would be neutral, when there were other candidates like now Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, who are black.
Biden then asked Sharpton for his advice on running in 2020, avoiding saying definitively whether or not he planned to run.
But, as Sharpton told the group at the White House, that conversation nearly four years ago convinced him that he was among the first to know that Biden would eventually run.
At the conclusion of the meeting with the civil rights groups, Sharpton and Biden got together to take a photo together.
Biden told Sharpton that he was right to believe he was among the first to hear about his candidacy in 2020. He then told Sharpton he would "do it again," the reverend told his staff.
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While Biden's popularity has risen in recent months, from a low of 36.8% in the RealClearPolitics organization's polling average at the end of July to 42.1% now, there has been less speculation about an alternative Democratic candidate than Biden.
The last sitting president to resign to seek a second term was Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
In his public comments, Biden has been circumspect, even as his allies quietly prepare to launch a re-election campaign.
“Look, my intention, as I said at the beginning, is to run again,” Biden said Sept. 18 on CBS's
60 Minutes
, more than two weeks after his meeting with civil rights leaders.
“But it is just an intention.
But is it a firm decision that I will run again?
We'll see".
