What happened?

Former Vice President Joe Biden announced his bid for the 2020 Presidential election last Thursday, though rumors of his candidacy have circulated long before it became official. Biden announced his entrance (it's his third time as a presidential candidate) via a short video in which he denounced Trump but largely avoided a direct discussion of his stance on policy issues. The announcement comes at a time when Biden faces significant criticism from the public in the wake of his handling of the Anita Hill hearing in the 1990s and more recent sexual harassment allegations. Still, Biden is the front-runner in the early polls, holding a 6-point launch bounce and having reportedly raised $6.3 million in the first official day of his candidacy.

What students thought

We polled 30 students on Tuesday, Apr. 30 at Norris University Center. While many claimed that they were simply not informed enough to make a sound judgement, a high plurality believed that Biden should not have entered the race.

“I just think there’s so many other qualified candidates,” Communications freshman Jack Owens said. “The pool is already way too huge. I don’t think he’s going to create the necessary change that is needed for the country.”

SESP first-year Rachel Philips argued, however, that a candidate like Biden has a higher potential to beat Trump, and that the Democratic candidate pool needs to thin out if the party is going to be successful in 2020.

“There are a lot of Democrats who need to drop because they will take away a lot of support from those who are more likely to win,” Philips said. “We can’t be breaking down our party from within. It’s counterintuitive.”