The extraordinary size of the 2020 field of Democratic presidential hopefuls isn’t necessarily good news, according to a man who would know.

Former vice president Joe Biden this week joined the field of contenders for the Democratic nomination, bringing its size to 20. It’s the largest Democratic presidential nomination field. The winner will face off against incumbent Donald Trump.

“Well, Joe is qualified and obviously should be running,” said John Kerry, former secretary of state who also was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004.

At the time a US senator from Massachusetts, Kerry emerged as the nominee by defeating a field of rivals less than half the size of this year’s crop of Democratic contenders. Kerry went on to lose narrowly to Republican President George W Bush.

“I don’t want to get into commentary on everybody [running today], but I don’t think this is helpful for the Democratic Party, I don’t think it’s particularly helpful for the country,” Kerry added, referring to the large size of the field.

“I think it’s helpful to have a healthy primary, but as many candidates as we have today, I think it’s complicated for voters and complicated for the raising of money in particular,” Kerry said.