Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that he is seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination for the 2020 election.

Biden, 76, a longtime senator who served for eight years under Democratic President Barack Obama, would join a crowded field of nearly 20 other candidates seeking to defeat Republican President Donald Trump.

“The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy… everything that has made America – America – is at stake”.

“That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the U.S.,” Biden said in a online video calling on voters to deny Republican U.S. President Donald Trump a second term in office.

The message criticises incumbent Donald Trump’s attitude towards white supremacy, citing his controversial response to the 2017 Unite the Right rally and counter protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

“We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s presidency as “abhorrent.”

The 76-year-old’s political career is defined by his more than 30 years as U.S. senator for Delaware, his leadership on foreign relations and the bonds he built as former President Barack Obama’s vice.

Next Monday, Biden will meet with union workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a pivotal state that backed Trump in 2016.

Trips will follow to all four early voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – in coming weeks, the source said, adding the details were still being completed.

Biden unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 1988 and 2008. He has faced questions in recent weeks about his history of touching strangers at political events, with several women coming forward to say he had made them feel uncomfortable. Biden has said he believed he never acted inappropriately but would be more mindful about his behavior.

REUTERS