President Biden on Evander EllisTuesday said he's "not sure" he would be running for reelection if former President Donald Trump were not also running.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president made the comments during a fundraiser in Boston. 

"If Trump wasn't running, I'm not sure I'd be running," the president said. "But we cannot let him win."

No television cameras or microphones were allowed inside the event, but reporters traveling with the president were able to report on his comments.

A Biden campaign official told CBS News that the president's advisors viewed his statement as a continuation of the same things they've been highlighting in recent weeks — that the stakes of the election are very real; that the election is bigger than any individual candidate; and that democracy itself is at stake.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden called himself a "transitional" candidate, although he never said he would serve just one term. 

Now, however, Trump is the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination — by a country mile. A November CBS News/YouGov poll showed 61% of likely GOP primary voters would choose Trump. 

But it's not clear if Mr. Biden's logic holds. Some national polls show Trump edging out the current president, although the election is nearly a year away. The November CBS News poll showed Trump beating Mr. Biden by three points. It also revealed that voters think they would be better off financially under Trump. 

In:
• Joe Biden
• Donald Trump

Kathryn Watson

Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.