Joe Biden to kick off presidential campaign with rally in Pittsburgh

Former Vice President Joe Biden is in Pittsburgh Monday, making his first campaign appearance since launching his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Biden, who joined the 2020 Democratic race last week, is counting on organized labor to comprise a significant part of his support, but despite his longstanding ties to unions, it may not be that easy.

The Democratic field now features 20 contenders, many of whom are making furtive bids for backing by labor.

“This may be the most pro-union group of candidates we’ve seen in decades making it tougher for anyone candidate to line up significant union support,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the AFL-CIO who is advising unions on their 2020 strategies.

Biden, 76, has long styled himself as a champion of blue-collar workers, but his record as a U.S. senator and his two terms serving as former President Barack Obama’s No. 2 may complicate his efforts to draw union voters.

As a senator from Delaware, Biden supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has become a sore point with unions that blame it for jobs going overseas.

As vice president, he was part of an administration that promulgated labor-friendly regulatory policies, but also pushed through trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea over the objections of several unions and many other Democrats.

A massive 12-nation trade deal backed by Obama and Biden, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was opposed by labor and became an issue in the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, used it to criticize Democratic policies.

In Pittsburgh, Biden will address the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and is expected to lay out his vision for bolstering the nation’s middle class. After that, he will head off on a campaign trip to the early voting state of Iowa.

While organized labor has lost political clout with the decline of industrial jobs in America, it remains a key Democratic constituency, valued for its capacity to mobilize voters.

At this juncture, Biden may have to worry most about U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who, along with Biden, sits atop public opinion polls concerning the 2020 field.