[Biden on the issues: where he stands and how he’s changed.]
One liberal advocacy group, Justice Democrats, announced on Thursday morning that it would oppose Mr. Biden’s candidacy. “The old guard of the Democratic Party failed to stop Trump, and they can’t be counted on to lead the fight against his divide-and-conquer politics today,” said Alexandra Rojas, the group’s executive director, in a statement.
Mr. Biden will seek to make the case for himself in the coming days, giving his first television interview on Friday on ABC’s “The View,” where he memorably appeared in 2017 and comforted a co-host, Meghan McCain, a daughter of Senator John McCain, about her father’s battle with brain cancer.
He will then barnstorm key primary states over the next few weeks, starting with remarks on “rebuilding an inclusive middle class” on Monday in Pittsburgh, followed by trips to Iowa and South Carolina and then proceeding to Nevada, California and New Hampshire by the middle of May. The Biden rollout is set to culminate in Philadelphia on May 18, with a speech about “unifying America,” his campaign said.
His long-awaited entry effectively completes the field of major Democratic candidates, and may goad the party’s large number of would-be presidents to compete more aggressively for attention in a race currently framed by two outsize political characters in their eighth decades of life — Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Mr. Biden’s rivals have taken encouragement in recent weeks from signs of unsteadiness and indecision in his camp. Mr. Biden spent much of this month attempting, in fits and starts, to address a wave of stories in which women described his physical manner as discomfiting and excessively intimate. And his advisers have repeatedly explored and then disavowed a range of offbeat or daring plans, including announcing a running mate early in his campaign — perhaps Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat — or kicking off his campaign in Charlottesville, as a rebuke to Mr. Trump.
It is unclear how bold a campaign Mr. Biden intends to run, and whether he will seek to electrify the Democratic coalition or merely satisfy its thirst for a champion who appears up to the job of beating Mr. Trump.