Delaware Governor Endorses Joe Biden For President

The veep’s rumored 2016 presidential bid gets an endorsement from his governor and chair of the National Governors Association.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vice President Joe Biden picked up the first endorsement for what could be his third bid for the presidency in 2016, from Jack Markell, the Democratic governor of Delaware, Biden’s home state.

Gov. Jack Markell told BuzzFeed in no uncertain terms that he hoped the vice president would throw his hat in the ring in three years’ time.

“I’m a Delawarean, I love Joe Biden, and I hope to have the chance to vote for Joe Biden,” said Markell in an interview Sunday during the annual meeting of the National Governors Association, which he has chaired since last year.

“It’s true!” said the governor, after a short pause.

Markell, who enjoyed a decade-long tenure as state treasurer before becoming governor in 2008, shares close professional ties in the state with Biden. He works often in the state house with the vice president’s son, Attorney General Beau Biden, and was floated as a candidate to temporarily fill Biden’s U.S. Senate seat after the 2008 election.

The governor — who himself appears occasionally on long lists of presidential hopefuls — was an attendee last month at the vice presidential residence for a party, according to a report by Politico, that had guests “convinced” of Biden’s 2016 ambitions.

And indeed, Biden has been telling supporters openly for years that he thinks he may take another shot at the White House, though his possible bid has generally been overshadowed by that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

When asked about other potential Democratic candidates — specifically Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, also in Washington, D.C., for the governors meeting — Markell said only that he would stick with his man, Biden.

“I think there are a lot of really talented people out there, but you know, we’ve got an incredible vice president,” said Markell. “He is from my home state. I think he’d be terrific.”