Road funding push takes Biden to SC

Vice President Biden will travel this week to another early presidential primary state for official business, this time South Carolina.

{mosads}Biden plans to visit Owen Steel in Columbia on Wednesday with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to speak about infrastructure investments as part of the agency’s Grow America Tour. He’ll also stop by the state’s Port of Charleston earlier that day.

The White House budget includes almost $500 billion to upgrade American infrastructure, paid for in part by new taxes on the foreign earnings of American companies.

It’s the latest trip for Biden to an early primary state as he publicly weighs a 2016 bid for president. He spoke in Des Moines last week in the state that is home to the first nominating contest, the Iowa caucuses. He’ll also head to North Carolina as part of the roads funding tour.

Potential Republican candidates have spent the past few months crisscrossing states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Biden has his work cut out for him if he decides to run, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds major leads in the polls. She leads Biden by a margin of 65 percent to 20 percent in South Carolina, and that’s their closest gap in the first three primary states, according to a new poll from NBC News/Marist.