Joe Biden Heads to New Hampshire as 2020 Speculation Mounts

Donald Trump may only be 100 days into his presidency, but Democrats are already looking ahead to the 2020 election, when they hope to win back the Oval Office.

But what is still unknown is which candidates the Democratic Party will field in 2020. And former Vice President Joe Biden visit to New Hampshire, a crucial battleground state, Sunday to headline the state Democratic Party’s McIntyre Shaheen 100 Club Dinner is causing some to speculate that he may throw his hat in the ring. This has been the case with previous high-profile visits to the state in non-election years.

But longtime Biden adviser Ted Kaufman told CNN that a decision on a 2020 bid wasn’t imminent. “That’s a long way off. It’ll be a long time before he’ll have to think about that. And a lot will depend on where he is, where the country is, where the party is,” Kaufman told CNN.

Biden will also be accompanied by New Hampshire’s groundbreaking all-female Congressional delegation Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, and Reps. Annie Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter.

The former Vice President ultimately decided against challenging Hillary Clinton in 2016 – announcing in Oct. 2015 that he decided not to enter the race because his family was still reeling from the loss of his son Beau, who had died of brain cancer several months earlier.

“I believe we’re out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination,” he said at the time. “But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent.”

But, in public remarks at Colgate University last month, Biden professed his belief that he would have beat Trump if he had run, although he doesn’t regret his decision given his son’s death.

“Do I regret not being president? Yes,” Biden told Colgate president Brian W. Casey. “Do I regret not running for president, in light of everything that was going on in my life at the time? No.”

If Biden were to launch a campaign in 2020, it would be his third attempt at the presidency. He previously ran unsuccessfully in 1988 and 2008 before joining Obama on the ticket to become his vice president.