“Are you ready for 2024?” “So!” – shouts the crowd. Until recently, it seemed unlikely, but in the ranks of the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia, Joe Biden’s candidacy for a second term is now almost a certainty, writes AFP.

The American president, who will speak late in the afternoon at a luxury hotel in this northeastern US city, is expected to be the star of the convention.

“You all have to be his apostles for the next two years,” said Ken Martin, leader of the Minnesota Democratic Party, speaking at the panel.

Huge investments in the country’s infrastructure, protection of the working class and union jobs … “No president has done so much” for the country, the politician said.

To members of the Democratic Party who have come from all over the country to prepare for the next presidential election, he says, “We have to get out there, promote all of this to the American people.”

80 years old, what if?

All doubts about the age of Joe Biden, who in 2020 promised to make his presidency a kind of “bridge” that will open the way for future generations, have been dispelled. “I hear about it from time to time, but less than you think,” says Ken Martin, as if downplaying the pressing issue.

If re-elected, Joe Biden will be 86 years old at the end of his second term.

Malcolm Kenyatta, nearly 50 years the president’s junior, agrees with AFP: “I wouldn’t allow myself to discriminate against him because of his age, as long as he’s defending a program that works,” says the Pennsylvania-elect.

Democrats are now rallying around a president whose candidacy seems inevitable. In an interview with AFP, Senator Chris Coons, who is very close to Joe Biden, predicts an announcement “in the coming months.”

Even members of the party’s most progressive wing, which criticized the president’s social and climate agenda early in his term, have returned to better feelings.