Biden headed to Houston for town hall
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday will make his first stop in Texas since announcing his 2020 campaign for the White House.
Biden and his wife, Jill, are scheduled to be in Houston on Tuesday for a town hall session with the American Federation of Teachers. The town hall will be at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 716, 1475 North Loop West.
Biden is the latest Democratic contender to participate in a town hall with AFT President Randi Weingarten. U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., all took part in town halls earlier this month.
Biden’s appearance comes as he surges in public polling. In five different national polls over the last two weeks, Biden had a lead of at least 18 percentage points over the next closest Democrat.
Biden is just the latest of a parade of Democratic presidential candidates to come through Houston over the last two months. Earlier this month, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand held events in Houston.
In April, Klobuchar, Harris, Warren, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., all attended a rally at Texas Southern University.
While it’s Biden’s first trip to Texas since announcing his campaign, he’s no stranger to Houston. During a speech in Sugar Land in 2017, Biden said Houston became a big part of his family life after his late son, Beau, was diagnosed with cancer.
Biden said Houston officials helped him fly in and out of the area discreetly in 2014 and 2015 as Beau was being treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“The Houston police, they did incredible things for me,” Biden said. “They quietly got me in and out Houston.”