Labor chief: Dem race ‘still wide open’

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka says the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is still open, leaving time for Vice President Biden to potentially jump in.

“The field is still wide open. There’s still a lot of time,” Trumka said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Trumka met privately with Biden last week and will see him again on Monday in Pennsylvania, the AP noted. The vice president has been weighing a run for the nomination.

{mosads}Biden “has to decide whether he’s got the full focus. … Only he knows the answer to that,” Trumka said, according to the AP. “He would be a good candidate. He would be a good president.”

The union leader said it was “conceivable” that the AFL-CIO, a federation of the largest labor groups in the country, could endorse a candidate before voters head to the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“I would say it is not likely to happen,” Trumka cautioned.

It is unclear whether the AFL-CIO would throw its support behind anyone in the Democratic primary. Candidates, though, have picked up some union endorsements.

The nation’s largest organization of nurses backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last month, days before front-runner Hillary Clinton picked up her second national union endorsement.

Trumka praised both candidates Tuesday, saying Clinton would “make a great president” and Sanders is “connecting” with voters.

He added that he believes Clinton needs “to really figure out how to energize workers.”