Gephardt plans to back Kerry in presidential race

NEW YORK -- Rep. Dick Gephardt, the former House minority leader whose presidential campaign collapsed in Iowa's caucuses, will endorse Democratic front-runner John Kerry.

Kerry spokesman David Wade said the Missouri lawmaker will give Kerry his backing today in Warren, Mich., a blue-collar suburb of Detroit. The endorsement is a huge boost for Kerry who has been aggressively pursuing the backing of labor unions who had thrown their support to Gephardt.

Kerry was poised to make considerable headway with organized labor. The Alliance for Economic Justice, which was formed by the Teamsters and more than a dozen industrial unions, planned to endorse Kerry after a morning meeting with him in Boston, two labor officials said Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The labor endorsement announcement won't be made until next week or the following. Presidents of the unions wanted time to brief their members before making the endorsement public, the sources said.

The coalition was formed in the fall by unions that supported Gephardt after it became clear that some of the larger public and service sector unions did not want to give him a laborwide endorsement from the AFL-CIO. They include the steelworkers, laborers, machinists, ironworkers and others.

Gephardt dropped out of the race last month after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Kerry has tightened his grip on the front-runner title with back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire and victories in five of the seven states that voted on Tuesday.

The Gephardt endorsement caps a series of endorsements for Kerry Thursday, including Maine's governor, the two Michigan senators and former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, D-Maine.

Gephardt, the 14-term congressman, gained the support of more than 20 unions with more than 5 million members. He failed in a bid to win the backing of the AFL-CIO, though, when Howard Dean collected the support of the Services Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, two of the largest members of the labor federation.

Among the former presidential candidates, Carol Moseley Braun has endorsed Howard Dean. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida has not indicated his preference in the Democratic primary. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut exited the race on Tuesday.

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AP Labor Writer Leigh Strope in Washington contributed to this report.