Biden would fundraise for Lundergan Grimes

If asked, Vice President Joe Biden said in a recent interview he would raise money for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) likely general election opponent. 

However, Biden said he has never campaigned against a sitting Republican — not to mention, a leader of the party — and admitted it is a bad idea. He made the distinction between raising money for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and campaigning against McConnell. 

“I think it’s a bad idea, and it’s happened too much but I’ve never done it — for sitting Senators of either party, and leaders of either party, to campaign personally against the other leader,” he said in a Time magazine interview published Monday. “But I will be campaigning for a lot of Democratic races where there is an incumbent Republican.”

But Biden said he would likely get involved in as many as 150 races, including ones that have a sitting Republican incumbent. 

Biden has a personal relationship with Lundergan Grimes’s father, Jerry Lundergan. Her father was chairman of Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign in Kentucky. 

“So, will I go into Kentucky? Jerry Lundergan, who is the dad of our candidate, is a close friend of mine,” he said. “He was the Biden chairman for my effort to win Kentucky, which we never got to in ’08, so I’m sure I will help his daughter if they ask to raise money.”

Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of State, is locked in a tough contest with McConnell, who also faces a primary opponent. In a recent poll, she topped McConnell by 4-percent as his approval level in the state has dropped. 

Bill Clinton, another personal friend of Lundergan Grimes’s father, is slated to a campaign with the Democratic candidate Feb. 25