Doesn't change the fact that it puts distance between him and preserves his life is he is actually intelligent enough to plan ahead and considering this is a pretty simplistic plan that you could imagine even Hidan coming up with.
Except Itachi establishes in Part 1 that it's Kisame's carelessness that would yield him uneccessary injuries against multiple opponents. If he had the intelligence to put distance between him and his opponent to gain a considerable advantage, that statement wouldn't have been needed.
Regardless, Kisame has never put distance between him and his opponent. He'll rely on Samehada's senses to deduce that the Raikage has a lot of chakra and would likely opt to absorb it like he did against V2 Bee.
Not contradicting his fighting style and dying or contradicting his fighting style and preserving his life, if he has the intelligence at the level of a simplistic human being, he should know which one he should do.
Please, in all likelihood, Kisame relies on Samehada's chakra received from his opponents to preserve his own life, not some lousy attempt to stay at a safe range. Kisame only retreated against 2 Jin, a Mokuton user, and a Gated user, but Raikage was never an opponent that Kisame implied to have ever felt to retreat on his own.