Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden’s White House bid, becoming the latest prominent Democrat to officially lend her support to the party’s presumptive nominee.
In a prerecorded video, Pelosi touted Biden as a “voice of reason and resilience” who has the ability to lead recovery efforts in the U.S. in response to the coronavirus pandemic. She also cited his work to implement the Affordable Care Act and the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as examples of his leadership skills.
“I am proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States because he will be an extraordinary president,” Pelosi said. “He knows how to get the job done.”
“When our nation faced the Great Recession, it was Joe Biden who led the implementation — and the accountability — of the Recovery Act, helping create and save millions of jobs. When the Democratic Congress was passing the Affordable Care Act, Joe Biden was a partner for progress in the White House and also championed the Cancer Moonshot,” she added.
Biden has enjoyed a wave of prominent endorsements since Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary race, all but assuring a Biden nomination. Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former President Obama have publicly backed the former vice president in recent weeks.
In her three-minute endorsement video, Pelosi emphasized the stakes of the 2020 general election, which will likely pit Biden against President Trump.
“With so much at stake, we need the enthusiasm, invigoration and participation of all Americans — up and down the ballot, and across the country,” she said, adding that “now more than ever, we need a forward-looking, battle-tested leader who will fight for the people.”
Her endorsement comes after a string of polls showed Biden with advantages over Trump nationally and in some key battleground states. One survey last week showed Biden
with a 8-point lead over the president, despite Trump’s approval rating matching an all-time high. Biden also leads Trump by 8 points in Michigan, a state that the president won in 2016, according to
a Fox News survey.
With the outbreak of the coronavirus suspending in-person campaigning, Biden has regularly appeared on news programs to address the crisis and how the Trump administration is responding to it. He’s repeatedly derided the president’s handling of the outbreak, saying that he should give more deference to the scientists leading the response.
