It. Has. Begun. On Friday, Rep. John Delaney of Maryland officially became the first Democrat running to defeat President Trump in 2020. Delaney, 54, made the announcement with an op-ed in the Washington Post. "It is time for us to rise above our broken politics and renew the spirit that enabled us to achieve the seemingly impossible," he writes. He says he believes he has an "original approach to governing" that will work for the American people and touts his "blue-collar family" and his past as a "successful entrepreneur" and job creator. The Baltimore Sun reports Delaney started a company that loaned money to nursing homes and doctors and founded a commercial and retail bank. At 32, he became the youngest CEO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.
Delaney will have an uphill battle to the presidency for multiple reasons. For one, the Democratic Party may be moving leftward too quickly for Delaney to keep up. Despite describing himself as progressive, his reputation in the House is as a bipartisan centrist. He opposes the $15 minimum wage and supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, CNN reports. He also isn't well-known nationally—though being able to spend millions of his own fortune on his campaign could help with that. Delaney's early announcement for president is a sign of two things: Pretty much every Democrat in elected office thinks they can beat Trump, and the race for the Democratic nomination could be wide open with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren all potentially sitting out. (More Election 2020 stories.)
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