Delaware senator stumps for Joe Biden

Coons won Senate seat formerly held by ex-VP

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., visited Las Vegas on Saturday to campaign for former Vice President Joe Biden, who he said would immediately re-establish the United States as a world leader and return the country to a state of normalcy if elected president.

Coons first met Biden on a college campus more than 30 years ago, as Biden pondered his first presidential bid in the 1980s. He later interned for Biden and worked with him as a local leader in Delaware before Biden asked him to run for his Senate seat, which Coons won in 2010.

Coons, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stressed that it is critical that the Democratic Party take back the White House and begin the work of reversing President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions.

“I’ve seen the way in which President Trump has upended our relationships around the world, tested — even strained — relationships and failed to keep our commitments,” Coons said.

Biden knows every major world leader by name, Coons added, and is uniquely suited to lead the mending process with our international allies.

Coons said his constituents and voters around the country no longer wish to wake up and nervously check their phones for what the president did or said at 3 a.m. that day. They want solutions to gun violence, climate change, health care and sagging education.

The senator traveled to Nevada to meet with labor leaders and other local groups on behalf of Biden.

“(Nevada) is a critical early-caucus state,” Coons said. “It’s the state that I think is going to seal the deal and make Joe the nominee.”

Coons has campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he believes

Nevada’s “background, makeup, history and vibrancy” make it uniquely suited to connect with Biden.

One of Biden’s key talking points centers on his claim of being able to work with Republicans to pass legislation.

Coons said Biden possesses the “greatest reserve of goodwill in the Senate.” Even if the Democrats flip the Senate, he said, it would almost certainly be a weak majority that would still require some level of compromise with Republicans.

Vulnerable Democratic incumbents and promising challengers in the Senate are also secretly hoping for a Biden nomination, Coons said, as they believe he would be the best candidate to lift others on the 2020 ticket.

John Bazemore The Associated Press From left, Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders debate in Atlanta in November.