One of the biggest unanswered questions ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle is whether or not President Joe Biden will run for a second term in the White House.

A recent report suggests that Biden answered that question in the affirmative when he privately informed MSNBC host Al Sharpton last month of his plans to see re-election, Breitbart reported.

Of course, that assertion comes from an anonymous official with Sharpton’s National Action Network organization and would seem to run counter to multiple signs that strongly suggest Biden may well choose to be a one-term president and step aside for his party to nominate somebody else in 2024.

Biden told Sharpton he plans to run again

According to NBC News, President Biden was described as having told Sharpton “I’m going to do it again” in reference to running for the presidency while posing for photographs following a White House in early September.

That event featured Sharpton and other black civil rights organization leaders meeting with Biden and others in his administration to discuss various issues that impact the black community.

According to the unnamed source, Sharpton had recounted during that meeting how Biden had met with him and discussed his plans to run in 2020 during a meeting in January 2019.

Once the White House event had concluded, Biden reportedly confirmed to everyone that Sharpton’s story was accurate, and it was at that time that Biden is said to have confided in Sharpton that he intended to “do it again” in the next cycle.

A Biden re-election campaign would not be easy or a sure thing

To be sure, this is not the first time that President Biden has dropped hints about the possibility of a re-election campaign, as he has suggested as much in several interviews, though he has always stopped short of fully committing to the idea or formally announcing another run for office.

That said, if he does decide to actually run again, Biden will face some rather strong headwinds, not the least of which is his advanced age — he will be 82 in 2024 — and increasingly apparent decline of his mental health and cognitive capabilities, according to Breitbart.

Then there is the fact that Biden himself, to say nothing of his policy agenda, is decidedly unpopular with a majority of the American people. Indeed, the RealClearPolitics average of polls shows that Biden’s approval rating percentage, which dipped down into the mid-30s in July, remains deep underwater in the low 40s, with little indication of any impending improvement.

On top of that, multiple polls indicate that most Democratic voters don’t want Biden to be the nominee again, though the party’s base appears to be widely split over exactly who among several prominent Democratic politicians should be picked as Biden’s successor.

Furthermore, odds are that if Biden were to run again, he would most likely face former President Donald Trump in a rematch of 2020, and while the former president certainly faces his own issues with public approval, polling indicates that the race would be exceptionally close and that voters may well decide to return to Trump’s prosperous if wild leadership in comparison to Biden’s economy-wrecking lack of leadership that has the nation in a downward spiral.