America’s largest union backs Joe Biden bid for presidency
America’s largest labour union has lined up behind Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, with the National Education Association endorsing the former vice-president for the Democratic nomination over his last remaining primary rival Bernie Sanders.
The NEA’S board of directors chose Biden following a recommendation from the organisation’s political action committee board, following months of surveying the organisation’s three million members and multiple presidential candidate forums held around the country.
NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia called Biden a “tireless advocate for public education” and “the partner that students and educators need now in the White House.”
The union’s decision came with Biden on the cusp of stretching out an insurmountable delegate lead over Sanders.
The two candidates meet next Sunday for their first one-on-one debate, before four populous states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio – hold primaries with a combined 577 delegates up for grabs.
Biden currently leads Sanders
by more than 150 delegates with more than half of the national total already awarded, a gap that means Sanders must win 57 per cent of the remaining delegates to wrest the nomination from Biden. There is no precedent for such a comeback.
In the four states that vote tomorrow, almost 760,000 voters live in households with at least one NEA member, according to the union.