Dropped Out: Senator Kamala Harris Of California
Harris made her announcement on Martin Luther King Day, or January 21, via Twitter and her campaign website.
The Democratic senator for California is currently serving her first term in the Senate, similar to former President Barack Obama, who was initially criticized for his inexperience after he announced his 2008 presidential campaign as a first-term senator.
Prior to her role in the Senate, Harris was California’s attorney general and served as the district attorney of San Francisco.
While her campaign got off to a promising start, Harris was overshadowed by the other top candidates and dropped out of the race on December 3, 2019 amid reports of financial struggles and infighting among her campaign team.
Read more about Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Sen Rick Scott Of Florida
Scott, 68, is a first-term senator whose biggest asset could be his fundraising. During his 2018 campaign, he raised more than $20 million, in addition to $63 million of his own money he chipped in, according to Politico, and hes also chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Scott and his wife, Ann Holland, have two children, and he was previously the governor of Florida.
His Political Career Was Surprising And Brief
Walshs political career has more in common with Trump than he might like to acknowledge: Like Trump, Walsh eked out a surprise victory in his one and only successful race for office, beating incumbent Melissa Bean in 2010 by a few hundred votes.
Though he quickly made himself one of the faces of the tea party opposing Obama, Walsh had a history of changing views, telling the ChicagoTribune during an unsuccessful run for Congress in the 90s: I think Im the kind of Republican who can win because Im open and tolerant. Im not some right-wing conservative. In addition to politics, Walsh, an Illinois native, previously worked as a community college teacher, in finance, as a fundraiser and a researcher, according to the Tribune.
Walshs district was re-drawn after the 2010 census and he was soundly defeated in his re-election bid, after which he reportedly became a radio host.
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Sen Marco Rubio Of Florida
Like Cruz, Rubio would enter the 2024 presidential race with heightened name ID and experience from his 2016 run. One of Rubios biggest challenges, though, could be his fellow Floridians. If DeSantis and fellow Sen. Rick Scott run, there could be just one ticket out of Florida, a Republican strategist said.
Rubio, 49, is married to Jeanette Dousdebes and they have four children. He graduated from the University of Florida and University of Miami School of Law and was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives before running for U.S. Senate in 2010.
Dropped Out: Motivational Speaker Author And Friend Of Oprah Winfrey Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson, a motivational speaker, New York Times best-selling author, and one-time congressional candidate with a substantial following announced her candidacy for president in January 2019.
Williamson, the 10th Democratic candidate to jump into the race, began speaking and writing self-help books rooted in New Age spirituality in Los Angeles in the 1980s. She’s also been heavily involved in AIDS awareness and advocacy efforts.
A 1992 appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show helped launch her into Hollywood’s elite class as the preferred spiritual guide for many in the entertainment world.
Her first foray in politics was an independent run for Congress in California’s 33rd congressional district in 2014. She ended up losing to current Rep. Ted Lieu, but is now launching a bid for the highest office in the land.
After failing to crack 1% in the polls for months and laying off all her campaign staff, Williamson finally dropped out of the race on January 10, 2020.
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Dropped Out: Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
Patrick also made a late entry into the race, officially announcing his campaign on November 14.
While Patrick hasn’t been very active on the political scene for the past few years, he’s led a long career in business and politics. He served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, and was most recently a managing director at Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Sen. Mitt Romney.
“I admire and respect the candidates in the Democratic field,” Patrick said in his announcement video. “But if the character of the candidates is an issue in every election, this time is about the character of the country.”
Patrick will have a tough uphill battle in his presidential bid. He’s already missed the filing deadline for two Super Tuesday state primaries in Alabama and Arkansas, and unlike Bloomberg, doesn’t have billions of dollars in personal wealth to draw from.
Patrick dropped out of the race the day after the New Hampshire primary.
Ohio Governor John Kasich
Kasich, like Fiorina, also may want another shot at the job. He was one of the candidates Trump felled in the 2016 primary. Despite that, he has remained dedicated to his vision for the GOP.
âI have a right to define what it means to be a conservative and what it means to be a Republican,â he told New York magazine in October. âI think my definition is a lot better than what the other people are doing.â
Voters didnât take to his philosophy in 2016 Kasich managed to win only his home state. But unlike other Republicans who have spoken out against Trump and seen their polling numbers subsequently drop, Kasichâs constituency has remained supportive, the Washington Post noted.
Kasich also appears to have shifted his position on another presidential run. Asked on CNNâs State of the Union in March whether he would look to primary Trump, he repeatedly answered âno.â A month later Kasich shifted, saying it was âvery unlikelyâ he would seek higher office again.
Then in May, just a couple weeks later, he told Bill Maher he doesnât know what his plans are.
âI donât know what Iâm going to do,â he said, talking about a 2020 run. âIâm going to keep a voice, but I canât predict to youI never thought I would be governor, I never thought Iâd go back into politics.â
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Sen Ted Cruz Of Texas
During his remarks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition Road to Majority conference in Florida last month, Cruz said that a conservative revival is coming and hearkened back to the Reagan revolution. It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan, he said. Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0. Left unsaid, but implied, is that Cruz sees himself as the Reagan 2.0 who will ensure Biden is a one-term president.
Cruz said at that conference that having social conservative or patriotic views can get you canceled, and its time to fight back. He also recited a favorite quote from the late Andrew Breitbart who said politics is downstream from culture, and said the phrase was now outdated. Today, politics is culture, Cruz said, which might help explain why he signaled his support to free Britney Spears from her conservatorship the day after her court testimony.
Cruz has begun making endorsements in other races, including Susan Wright in the runoff for Texas 6th Congressional District later this month, as well as former Rep. Matt Salmon in Arizonas gubernatorial race next year. While Republicans are undoubtedly happy to have Cruzs support, Democrats like it, too, at least in Virginia, where fundraising emails from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe that mention Cruzs endorsement of his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin bring in big bucks, per the Dallas Morning News.
Former Governor Bill Weld Of Massachusetts
Weld, who served as Massachusetts’ governor in the 1990s and was more recently on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2016 as presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s running mate, announced his campaign on April 15.
“It is time for patriotic men and women across our great nation to stand and plant a flag. It is time to return to the principles of Lincoln equality, dignity, and opportunity for all,” he said in his announcement statement.
“There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great. I am ready to lead that fight.”
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Voters Didn’t Want A Third Term For Obama
Regardless of how popular Obama was, it’s incredibly rare for presidents from the same party to win back-to-back terms in the White House, partly because voters become fatigued by a president and his party by the end of eight years. In our two-party system, the last time voters elected a Democrat to the White House after a president from the same party had just served a full term was in 1856, before the Civil War. That was James Buchanan.
Dropped Out: Governor Steve Bullock Of Montana
Bullock, the Democratic governor of Montana, announced he’s running for a president on May 14th, the 22nd Democratic contender and the third governor to join the field.
In an announcement video posted online Tuesday morning, Bullock highlighted his work passing bipartisan legislation to ban corporate money in Montana’s elections as governor.
Bullock argues he brings unique strength to the table as a Democratic governor who was re-elected the same year Trump won his state by 20 points and has since achieved progressive victories including expanding Medicaid and freezing university tuition in the spring 2019 Montana legislative session.
Sanford announced on September 8, 2019 that he would launch a primary challenge to Trump, which marked the third challenge from within the president’s party.
The former congressman lost a primary in 2018 after emerging as a vocal critic of Trump, who in turn encouraged voters to vote against him.
In a “Fox News Sunday” interview announcing the challenge, Sanford said he thinks “we need to have a conversation on what it means to be a Republican.”
“I think that as a Republican Party we have lost our way,” he added. After Stanford’s long-shot bid failed to gain any traction, he dropped out of the race on November 12.
Read more about Mark Sanford’s campaign.
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Bernie Sanders And The Enthusiasm Gap
Manynot all, but many supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders did not come around to Clinton after she won the brutal, and what many thought , rigged, Democratic primary. In a scathing criticism of liberals Sanders supporters who didn’t support Clinton in the general election, Newsweek magazine’s Kurt Eichenwald wrote:
“Awash in false conspiracy theories and petulant immaturity, liberals put Trump in the White House. Trump won slightly fewer votes than Romney did in 201260.5 million compared with 60.9 million. On the other hand, almost 5 million Obama voters either stayed home or cast their votes for someone else. More than twice as many millennialsa group heavily invested in the Sanders was cheated out of the nomination fantasyvoted third-party. The laughably unqualified Jill Stein of the Green Party got 1.3 million votes those voters almost certainly opposed Trump if just the Stein voters in Michigan had cast their ballot for Clinton, she probably would have won the state. And there is no telling how many disaffected Sanders voters cast their ballot for Trump.”
Representative Tulsi Gabbard Of Hawaii
Gabbard announced her candidacy on January 11 in an interview with CNN’s Van Jones.
The Hawaii representative has been in Congress since 2012, and has been at times a rising star for progressives but also sometimes challenging to the rest of her party. Her positions on foreign policy, in particular, have at times put her at odds with many on the left over the past year or two.
President Donald Trump is seeking reelection in 2020. He announced his intentions to do so just days into his first term, on January 20, 2017.
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