Everytown for Gun Safety endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary on Monday.
The gun reform group lauded Biden’s record on gun safety, an issue that Biden has used to attack his primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“Vice President Joe Biden is unquestionably the candidate in the race who has spent a lifetime fighting to protect Americans from gun violence while repeatedly taking on the NRA and winning,” John Feinblatt, head of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement.
Everytown, which was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg, has committed to spending $60 million to elect “gun sense” candidates up and down the ballot in November.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown, added that the group’s nearly 6 million supporters and volunteers “will be out in force for Joe.”
“When every candidate is running on the issue of gun safety, deciding who to endorse becomes a question of who will prioritize gun safety as president, and Joe Biden has a track record that proves that he will,” Watts added.
Another gun safety group, Brady, endorsed Biden on Sunday.
Biden has called out Sanders over his gun reform record. In an ad released last month, Biden went after Sanders’s votes for a bill in 2003 and 2005 that effectively protected gun manufacturers against lawsuits.
At a Las Vegas rally in February, Biden also called Sanders’s vote against the Brady Bill, which created a system of background checks, “one of the worst votes Sen. Sanders has ever taken.”
Everytown on Monday touted Biden’s work helping to pass the bill establishing the modern-day background check system, as well as his work crafting the Violence Against Women Act and his opposition to granting what the group called “immunity for the gun industry.”
“Vice President Biden’s long-term commitment to reducing gun violence is crystal clear. He has built on these efforts by prioritizing gun safety in his campaign and in his plan for his first 100 days in office. Americans know Joe Biden — and we can trust he’ll fight like hell for new, common-sense gun safety measures to keep us safe,” Feinblatt said.
Biden and Sanders will compete in six states on Tuesday. The race between the two is close, with Biden holding a slight lead over Sanders in delegates after the former vice president’s strong Super Tuesday performance last week.