Biden set to announce presidential run next week

Discussions about the exact timing of the former VP’s entry in the crowded field is ongoing and subject to change, advisers told NBC.</s>The primary, Biden believes, will be easier than some might think: He sees a clear path down the middle of the party, especially with Bernie Sanders occupying a solid 20 percent of the progressive base, and most of the other candidates fighting for the rest. And the announcement comes at a moment when many in the party have become anxious about Sanders’s strength, with some beginning to wonder whether Biden might be the only sure counterweight to stop him from getting the nomination. A Biden spokesperson declined to comment.

Biden’s announcement video will draw, in part, on footage shot two weeks ago outside his old family home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he likes to bring people and tell stories about how his grandfather would sit at the kitchen table, talking about making ends meet. But the campaign is still making key decisions on what will happen next, including whether to go cute for a launch event by doing it on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, famous for the training montage from Rocky, or go for a powerful challenge directed right at Trump by heading to Charlottesville, Virginia, where the president infamously blamed “both sides” of a neo-Nazi march in August 2017.

Charlottesville was the event that first led Biden to speak out forcefully against Trump, and by going there, he could use the event as a rallying point for “the battle for the soul of this nation” that he’s been talking about since Trump refused to condemn the white supremacists that weekend. (Biden’s team has also looked at locations back home in Delaware.)

If all this uncertainty seems extraordinarily last-minute for so high profile a candidate, that’s because it is. Biden still had not officially made up his mind when the accusations from the women came out weeks ago, and his staff has been scrambling to get ready. Also: He doesn’t have any money to pay for any real campaign operations, since he doesn’t have an active campaign account. He’ll be hoping for a show of force, raising a few million dollars in the first few weeks. Without that, he couldn’t even pay for setting up a rally.

Senior staff for the campaign is set. Interviews for new aides have quietly been going on over the past two weeks, and some hires have been made. Calls have gone out to key donors. A wider circle has been told to stand by. There’s a lot to get ready, including how to build a series of smaller campaign events that would showcase his strength in retail politics by playing up his interactions with voters—and counter the women who questioned those interactions when they came forward earlier this month.

Getting in next week will give Biden more than two months to fundraise ahead of the next quarterly reporting deadline at the end of June, and keeps him on track for the post-Easter timeline his top advisers have been projecting for the past few weeks.</s>WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce he’s running for president next week. That’s according to three people with knowledge of Biden’s plans.

CBS News previously reported Biden was in the final stages of preparing for a 2020 presidential run.

Biden will enter the race as a Democratic front-runner, although the 76-year-old faces questions about his age and whether his more moderate record fits with a party that has become more liberal.

The announcement is expected as early as Wednesday and would cap months of deliberation over his political future.

The people with knowledge of Biden’s plans insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

During a stop on his book tour last December, Biden said he was the most qualified person to be president.

“I’ll be as straight with you as I can. I think I’m the most qualified person in the country to be president,” Biden, the former Delaware senator, said. “The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I’ve worked on my whole life.”

Biden has been mired in controversy recently after being accused of inappropriate touching by several women. Seven women have come forward saying his touching made them feel uncomfortable.

Biden addressed the controversy in a video posted to Twitter.

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more. I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I’ve ever done,” he said, adding that he’s “never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman.”

Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. That’s my responsibility and I will meet it. pic.twitter.com/Ya2mf5ODts</s>Joe Biden is poised to make his long-awaited announcement to jump into the 2020 presidential campaign next week, people close to the former vice president say.

The format and date of the announcement are still in flux, but Biden’s team has been quietly laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign for months.

While his deadline has slid back several times this year, people close to the Delaware Democrat say they expect him to join the Democratic primary fight next week.

Greg Schultz, a top political adviser who is preparing to oversee Biden’s campaign, told Democrats on Capitol Hill earlier this week that “everything is going ahead as scheduled.”

His entry into the race will answer one of the biggest remaining questions of the makeup of the crowded and historically diverse Democratic primary field. This would mark his third run for the White House.

Earlier this month, Biden said he planned to announce his decision “relatively soon.”

“I’ve been told by the lawyer that I’ve got to be careful what I say so that I don’t start the clock ticking and change my status,” Biden told reporters. “… Even if I knew for certain that I was going to run for president back in Thanksgiving, my intention from the beginning, if I were to run, would be to be the last person to announce … Give everybody else their day and then I get a shot and then we’re off to the races.”</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce he's running for president next week.

That's according to three people with knowledge of Biden's plans.

Biden will enter the race as a Democratic front-runner, although the 76-year-old faces questions about his age and whether his more moderate record fits with a party that has become more liberal.

The announcement is expected as early as Wednesday and would cap months of deliberation over his political future.

The people with knowledge of Biden's plans insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

"Biden’s campaign will, at its core, argue that the response to Donald Trump requires an experienced, calm hand to help America take a deep breath and figure out a way to get back on track," Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote for the Atlantic. "First, however, the man who would become the oldest president in American history needs to get through a primary."

More: How old is Joe Biden compared to 2020 presidential election candidates? We break it down.

More: Biden won Delaware's heart in the 1970s, but does his appeal resonate nationally today?</s>WASHINGTON - Joe Biden will announce next week he is running for president, likely grabbing pole position in a crowded Democratic field eager to take on President Donald Trump in 2020, US media reported on Friday.

Biden, the veteran politico who has sought the White House twice before and served as Barack Obama's vice president, will make it official with a video to be released on Wednesday, according to several outlets.

NBC News and other American media reported that the longtime Delaware senator's decision was all but a formality - after he sat out 2016 as he mourned the death of his son Beau from cancer.

Biden (76) will join the race as its predominant centrist at a time in which many in the Democratic Party's progressive wing, including rivals for the nomination, have embraced liberal policies like universal healthcare.

Several strategists see Biden as the down-to-earth Democrat with star power who connects with working-class voters like those who abandoned Hillary Clinton for Trump in 2016.

In a Real Clear Politics poll released on Tuesday, Biden led with 31% support among people asked about who they like in the Democratic primary elections, followed by self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders at 23.

Some way behind, Kamala Harris of California, young Texas upstart Beto O'Rourke and rising star Pete Buttigieg were battling it out for third place - with nine, eight and seven percent respectively.

Biden has been leading in other polls too in recent days.</s>Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce he's running for president next week.

That's according to three people with knowledge of Biden's plans.

Biden will enter the race as a Democratic front-runner, although the 76-year-old faces questions about his age and whether his more moderate record fits with a party that has become more liberal.

The announcement is expected as early as Wednesday and would cap months of deliberation over his political future.

The people with knowledge of Biden's plans insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

RELATED: Who is running for president in 2020 so far?</s>
• Former Vice President Joe Biden is slated to announce a 2020 campaign for president next week.
• Biden has been huddling with advisers and courting support on and off for months.
• Multiple reports over the past several months have hinted that Biden would be jumping into the race, only to be delayed.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is reportedly gearing up to enter the large field of Democratic presidential candidates next week.

While Biden is ready to jump into the field and his advisers have been courting support among powerful groups, reports that the longtime Delaware senator is running for president have been sporadic during the first several months of 2019.

Read more: Top Joe Biden aide huddles with key Democrats on Capitol Hill in advance of expected presidential run

Rumors of an impending Biden announcement have been nonstop since the start of the year. On January 6, the New York Times reported Biden would “most likely make a decision within the next two weeks.” Axios reported Biden was eyeing a January 15 announcement date, telling top Democrats he was inching closer to a presidential bid.

When February rolled around, The Hill reported Biden was “95 percent there” and ready to take the plunge.

Later in the month, Biden himself teased a run, telling students at the University of Delaware his family was on board with a campaign.

“The first hurdle for me was deciding whether or not I am comfortable taking the family through what would be a very, very difficult campaign,” Biden said. “No matter who runs. It’s a very difficult campaign. The primary will be very difficult. And the general election, running against President Trump, I don’t think that he’s likely to stop at anything, whomever he runs against.”

“I am certain about where the family is,” Biden added. “But the second piece is that I don’t want this to be a fool’s errand and I want to make sure that if we do this, and we’re very close to getting to a decision, that I am fully prepared to do it.”

In March, the Wall Street Journal reported Biden told high dollar donors he was running in an effort to court support for an announcement.

Read more: If Joe Biden’s long-rumored presidential run crashes and burns, here’s who his supporters would flock to

Now, well into April, Biden has yet to announce and more reports are surfacing of his imminent campaign. Earlier this week, INSIDER reported that Biden’s top aide at his American Possibilities PAC met with more than a dozen Democratic chiefs of staff, courting support and conducting a focus group-like session to gauge key issues in various districts across the country.

It is not correct to say that all of the reporting on Biden running is false. He has indeed made deliberate attempts to gin up support and build a team. But Biden’s been “inching closer” and “almost there” and “ready to jump in” now several times over the past few months, suggesting the possibility of indecisiveness.

And Biden did experience a spell of bad public relations in late March, in which several women accused him of inappropriately touching them and invading their personal space. The accusations prompted Biden to address the issue, pledging to change his conduct in public, but could have also spooked him and delayed a presidential run.

The many delays should be taken with a grain of salt though. While Biden is late compared to the many other Democratic candidates, the race does not heat up this early in the context of history. By this time in 2015, only three Republican candidates had announced their presidential runs, with more than a dozen to follow.</s>WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to join the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential race next week.

The decision answers one of the most significant outstanding questions of the early presidential primary season, which has already seen announcements from 18 high-profile Democrats. Biden, 76, would be the oldest and most experienced politician in the race.

His plans were confirmed by three people with knowledge, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The announcement is expected as early as Wednesday and would cap months of deliberation over his political future.

The specific launch date and location is unclear. Biden is likely to quickly make visits to early-voting states.

One person said Biden’s advisers are also considering an early event in Charlottesville, Virginia, the site of a deadly clash between white supremacists and counterprotesters in 2017. The location would be intended to draw a contrast between Biden and President Donald Trump, who initially said there were some “very fine people on both sides” of the violent confrontation.

Biden has been particularly outspoken against the rise of white supremacy in the Trump era.

One of the most recognizable names in U.S. politics, Biden served as Barack Obama’s two-term vice president after nearly four decades as a Delaware senator. His high-profile, working-class background and connection to the Obama years would help him enter the race as a front-runner, although he faces questions about his age and whether his more moderate record fits with a party that has become more liberal.

With a record in elected office that stretches half a century, Biden faces multiple challenges.

Last month he struggled to respond to claims he touched 2014 Nevada lieutenant governor nominee Lucy Flores’ shoulders and kissed the back of her head before a campaign event. A few other women have made similar claims, though none has alleged sexual misconduct.

The incident is just a taste of the harsh vetting from both parties expected for Biden, who has run for president twice before but never from such a strong political starting point.

His first White House bid in 1988 ended after a plagiarism scandal. And in recent weeks, he was repeatedly forced to explain his 1991 decision, as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, to allow Anita Hill to face questions about her allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, then a nominee for the Supreme Court.

Biden has since apologized for his role in the hearing. But in the #MeToo era, it’s another example of why critics believe he may struggle to catch on with the Democratic primary voters of 2020.

On paper, however, he may be well positioned to take on Trump in a general election.

The Republican president’s allies have privately warned that Biden might be the biggest threat to Trump’s re-election given Biden’s potential appeal among the white-working class in the Midwest, the same region that allowed Trump to win the presidency.</s>Former Vice President Joe Biden will reportedly throw his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Biden is expected to make the announcement next week during a speech in Charlottesville, Virginia. Biden was President Barack Obama’s VP for eight years.

He chose not to run for the White House in 2016 after the death of his son Beau from brain cancer.

Biden has strong name recognition, but his team has reportedly been lagging in the logistics of fundraising in the digital age.

Recently Biden has made headlines after several women claimed he touched them inappropriately.

Democrats, as well as GOP Sen. of Florida Marco Rubio, defended the former Vice President who has since apologized.
Media reports indicate former United States Vice President and Senator Joe Biden has decided that next week he will announce his participation in the race for Democratic Party's nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.