Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Iowa next week, a trip that is sure to stoke further speculation that he plans to run for president in 2016.
Biden will headline an event Wednesday for the Nuns on the Bus “We the People, We the Voters” bus tour, the Des Moines Register reported Thursday. On the tour, Catholic nuns will travel to key Senate battlegrounds to “focus on combatting the Koch brothers and other dark money in politics,” according to a spokesman for the group Faith In Public Life.
The vice president’s jaunt to the Hawkeye State will come on the heels of a separate, high-profile visit from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic frontrunner for president. Hillary Clinton will be joined Sunday by former President Bill Clinton to headline Sen. Tom Harkin‘s annual steak fry, marking her first trip to the key presidential primary state since the 2008 presidential election.
Biden stirred chatter about his presidential ambitions last year when he headlined the steak fry. He has since traveled to New Hampshire and South Carolina, other important presidential primary states.
But Biden faces an uphill battle in Iowa if he is to challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination. An NBC News/Marist poll in July showed Clinton besting Biden by 50 percent in Iowa in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, with Clinton winning 70 percent support, compared to 20 percent for Biden.
