Bernie Sanders is preparing to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, as early as Tuesday at an event in New Hampshire, according to several Democrats familiar with the plans.
The long-awaited backing of Clinton from the runner-up in the Democratic nominating contest will follow weeks of maneuvering by Sanders to extract policy concessions from Clinton, on issues including college tuition and health care.
The Clinton campaign has announced a campaign stop Tuesday in New Hampshire, a general election battleground state, but provided no details about the event. The setting is the likely venue for Sanders’s endorsement, according to several Democrats, who requested anonymity to discuss the planning more freely.
Back in February, Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic primary convincingly over Clinton, and it is a state where she could use his help rallying his supporters for the fall election against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, Clinton announced her support for providing free tuition at public colleges and universities to families making up to $125,000 a year, — a major nod to a free-tuition-for-all proposal pushed by Sanders during his campaign that was wildly popular among younger voters.
The two campaigns have also been in talks over health care policy and are expected to make an announcement in coming days related to that issue, according to aides to the two candidates.
Sanders has increasingly hinted in media interviews that he is preparing an endorsement of the presumptive Democratic nominee. That included an appearance Wednesday night on MSNBC, where Sanders said reports of a possible endorsement next week were accurate.
Clinton’s stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday comes during a week when she will also be campaigning with a potential vice presidential pick. She is scheduled to appear in Northern Virginia next Thursday with Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., her campaign announced Thursday
The event with Kaine, a former Virginia governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, is planned two weeks after an appearance in Ohio with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., another name on Clinton’s list of possible running mates.
Aides to Clinton said that they have not nailed down a location yet for next Thursday’s event with Kaine in Virginia, one of eight battleground states where the campaign is up on the air with television ads in the race against Trump.
Both Kaine and Warren are among the potential running mates being vetted by the Clinton campaign. Others include Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro.
Clinton’s joint appearance with Warren – their first of the campaign – was viewed by many as an audition for the ticket. While Warren electrifies many of those on the party’s left, Kaine is generally viewed as a safer pick. One knock against him is that he’s seen as a relatively boring campaigner. Thursday’s event will provide an opportunity for him to counter that notion.