WASHINGTON (AP) — Caught in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s perpetual shadow, Joe Biden is working to boost his political profile among key Democratic voting blocs, a move that could help the vice president fashion himself as a more liberal alternative in the 2016 presidential race.

Major speeches this week to the NAACP and the Urban League will give Biden prime opportunities to court African-American voters who twice helped deliver the White House to President Barack Obama. He’ll do his part to help Democrats in the battleground state of Nevada at a campaign rally Wednesday. And last week, Biden wooed liberals at a pair of grassroots summits, basking in the adoration of activists who chanted “We love Joe.”