Biden jokes about size of Dem primary field: ‘I never anticipated it would be 300 people’

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday joked about the number of Democratic candidates he is running against for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

“There’s a lot of people who are qualified and decent and running,” Biden quipped at a campaign event, according to a pool report. “And I think it’s one heck of a field, although I never anticipated there’d be 300 people running.”

Biden, the latest high-profile candidate to enter the field, made the remark during a fundraising event in Los Angeles after being introduced by Tom Girardi, an attorney who is married to “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne.{mosads}

Girardi touted Biden’s strong polling numbers, but the former senator and vice president said he has “a long way to go” as he vies for the Democratic nomination alongside more than 20 other contenders.

“I know all that polling stuff looks good but it is a marathon and we have a long way to go,” Biden said as he took the stage.

Biden added that people will “never hear me speak ill of another Democratic candidate.”

Biden’s quip came after he predicted that the field of Democratic presidential contenders will be “winnowed out pretty quickly” in early 2020.

Biden told a group of reporters in Los Angeles that there is a 15 percent threshold for Democratic candidates in Iowa for the country’s first caucuses on Feb. 3.

“It’s going to work its way through relatively quickly for all of us,” he said.