Missouri Representative Richard Gephardt, who ended his Democratic presidential bid last month after a fourth-place finish in Iowa, was to endorse frontrunner Senator John Kerry on Friday and campaign with him in Michigan, campaign aides said.
Gephardt was to endorse Kerry at a morning campaign event in Warren, Michigan, and travel with the Massachusetts senator later on Friday, Kerry spokesman David Wade said.
The Democratic Party holds a caucus in Michigan on Saturday to choose a challenger to US President George W. Bush in November.
All the current presidential contenders had courted the former leader of the Democrats in the US House of Representatives for an endorsement, but he declined to wade into the race before Tuesday's primary in his home state of Missouri, which Kerry won handily.
Gephardt's endorsement was expected to prompt a coalition of labor unions that had supported him to endorse Kerry, labor sources said. That move could come within the next week after union leaders confer with their members.
Kerry and rival John Edwards, a North Carolina senator, had sought the support of the Alliance for Economic Justice, a 17-union coalition that supported Gephardt in Iowa.
Michigan's most influential labor union, the United Auto Workers, has sat out the Democratic primary process, although its Iowa chapter backed Gephardt.
But Kerry already holds a huge advantage in public opinion polls in the state.
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