"Anytime anybody believes there's going to be a coronation, that's dangerous for the candidate," Trumka told reporters during a breakfast in Washington hosted today by the Christian Science Monitor. "That's not good for the candidate. Because the candidate needs to be developing a grassroots system and support around the country."
Clinton, 66, has said she is considering a second presidential campaign, and polls consistently show she'd be the favorite to win the Democratic Party nomination. A primary fight would help her build a campaign network across the country before the 2016 election, said Trumka, head of the nation's largest labor federation.
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"The deeper you go, the better off that candidate is," he said. "And I think, quite frankly, that's precisely what she's doing."
Trumka said Clinton, a former U.S. senator representing New York, did "an excellent job" as President Barack Obama's secretary of state, a position she held from 2009 to 2013, and that she's "very, very qualified to be president."
He added that before the labor group makes an endorsement, he'd want to see who Clinton picks for her economic team.
"If you get the same economic team, you're going to get the same results, and the same results aren't good enough for working people," he said.
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