Former Vice President Joe Biden — still traveling the country on a national book tour — plans to make a detour Wednesday to meet with fellow Democrats preparing for a potentially historic election year.
Biden will launch the annual House Democratic policy retreat on Wednesday, which is being held over three days at a resort in Cambridge, Maryland. As vice president, he spoke at the retreat every year, usually in the shadow of then-President Barack Obama, who is not attending the retreat.
[Biden to Maine audience: US will see ‘significant change’ in next election]
Biden is making stops across the country to promote his book, “Promise Me, Dad,” which is mostly about how the Biden family dealt with the brain cancer that killed his oldest son, Beau.
Democrats are gathering this week amid polling that shows them is a position to retake control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. Recent fundraising reports also show dozens of Democratic congressional candidates raising impressive six-figure sums in the last fundraising quarter, in some cases topping the hauls of GOP incumbents.
Democrats attending their policy conference are also set to hear from Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez; Topeka, Kansas Mayor Michelle De La Isla; Hoboken, New Jersey Mayor Ravi Bhalla; former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr.; former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara — a frequent Trump critic; and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Holder and McAuliffe are poised to speak about the work they’re doing with Obama and other Democrats to push for changes in how state governments draw legislative boundaries.
House and Senate Republicans huddled last week at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, where they strategized for the year ahead and heard from President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and several Cabinet officials. Senate Democrats held a one-day strategy session last week at Mount Vernon in Virginia.
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