Former Vice President Joe Biden officially launched his third bid for the presidency. In a video released early Thursday morning, Biden said that “we are in a battle for the soul of this nation.”
His long-anticipated entry into the 2020 Democratic field comes almost four months after Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the first big-name Democrat to take her initial steps toward a run.
The former two-term vice president and six-term senator from Delaware enters as the putative front-runner during his almost a half-century in public office. At 76, he’s older than almost all of the 19 other Democrats in the race so far.
One of Biden’s first acts as a declared candidate, in fact, will be to attend a high-dollar fundraiser in Philadelphia on Thursday evening. Biden’s first public scheduled event will come Monday afternoon in Pittsburgh, where he will speak to members of the Teamsters union about rebuilding the middle class.
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