Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton pledged to fight for the middle class in her first major Democratic campaign rally before thousands of cheering supporters on New York City's Roosevelt Island.
But on Monday, the centre-left politician will likely be overshadowed by the long-awaited formal announcement in Miami by Jeb Bush - son of one president, brother to another and former governor of the southern state of Florida.
Until now, Clinton, 67, has led in opinion polls against any of the nine Republicans who have entered the ring and even against Bush, who will become the 10th on Monday.
Clinton told her supporters that she will fight to lift up the poor and middle class, who she said have been left behind as the US economy rebounds. She said advantages have been given to the wealthy and corporations, resulting in record profits and salaries for chief executives.
"You have to wonder, 'When does my hard work pay off?' 'When does my family get ahead?'
"I say now. Prosperity can't just be for CEOs and hedge fund managers," she said. "America can't succeed unless you succeed. That is why I'm running for the president of the United States."
Bush, 62, has been raising money aggressively for his political action committee. One reason he has waited to announce his candidacy is because once he does, he no longer can raise money for the committee under federal election rules.
Bush spent the past week meeting European leaders in an effort to establish foreign policy credentials - an issue where Clinton, as former secretary of state, has the upper hand.
He recently flubbed questions put to him about the war in Iraq, telling a television interviewer that he still would have invaded Iraq, as did his brother, knowing that there were no weapons of mass destruction that George W Bush used to justify the war.
After stumbling through several days of interviews, Bush finally, on the fourth day, said: "Knowing what we know now, I would not invade."
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, wife of former president Bill Clinton, is the clear party favourite. She faces three challengers - former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, Vermont Senator and declared socialist Bernie Sanders, and Lincoln Chafee, a former US senator who voted against the war in Iraq.
According to poll summaries, Clinton's toughest opponent in a hypothetical election would be the libertarian Republican Senator Rand Paul, whom she would beat with 2.8 percentage points. Against Bush, she would have a 5.2-percentage advantage.
If either Bush or Clinton would win the White House and serve until 2021, it would mean that two families have been in control of the White House over a 32-year stretch, interrupted only by Barack Obama's eight-year term that ends in 2017.
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