Former US vice-president Joe Biden launches 2020 White House bid as Democrat front runner
- The 76-year-old is expected to make his first public appearance as an official candidate on Monday in Pittsburgh
Former US vice-president Joe Biden, a moderate who has made his appeal to working-class voters that deserted the Democrats in 2016 a key part of his political identity, launched a bid for the White House on Thursday as the party’s instant front runner.
Biden announced the third presidential bid of his career by video on YouTube and other social media. He is expected to make his first public appearance as a candidate on Monday at an event in Pittsburgh featuring union members, a key constituency.
Biden, 76, had been wrestling for months over whether to run. His candidacy will face numerous questions, including whether he is too old and too centrist for a Democratic Party yearning for fresh faces and increasingly propelled by its more vocal liberal wing.
Still, he starts as the leader of the pack in opinion polls of a Democratic field that now will total 20 contenders seeking the chance to challenge President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee, in November 2020.
Critics say his standing in polls is largely a function of name recognition for the former US senator from Delaware, whose more than four decades in public service includes eight years as President Barack Obama’s No. 2 in the White House.