Meet the 2020 Presidential Candidates — So Far!

Delaney, a 55-year-old businessman and former Maryland Congressional representative, has been running for president almost as long as President Donald Trump has been in office: He announced his campaign in July 2017, according to Bostion radio station WBUR.

Hillary Clinton’s surprising loss “made me say, ‘We have to think differently about everything,’ ” Delaney, a Democrat who left office earlier this year, told WBUR. “We really need to move to a bit of a post-partisan world where we actually start solving problems.”

In his WBUR interview, Delaney outlined more moderate positions than many of his Democratic colleagues. For example, he said he supports “a system of universal health care where every American has health care as a fundamental right” but does not believed in a government-backed “Medicare-for-all.” He also said he believes in a compromise on border security that includes some physical barriers between the U.S. and Mexico.

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Andrew Yang

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Yang, the 44-year-old founder of Venture for America (described by the

According to the

“I’m a capitalist,” he told the paper last year, “and I believe that universal basic income is necessary for capitalism to continue.”

“I know the country my sons will grow up in is going to be very different than the one I grew up in,” Yang says on his campaign website, “and I want to look back at my life knowing I did everything in my power to create the kind of future our children deserve.”

According to PBS, Yang recently crossed the donor threshhold to be included in upcoming debates among the Democratic primary candidates where he is likely to make the biggest splash among those without formal political experience.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren

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At the end of December, the Massachusetts Democrat, 69, began her presidential bid.

The former Harvard bankruptcy law professor — who has drawn headlines for a DNA test she took to prove she has Native American heritage — is known for advocating for more regulations on Wall Street and big corporations. Before joining the Senate she was an adviser to President Obama.

“If you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to take care of yourself and the people you love,” Warren said in her video announcement.

“We can make our democracy work for all of us,” she continued. “We can make our economy work for all of us.”

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Julián Castro

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The former secretary of housing and urban development, 44, announced he was running in January in San Antonio, Texas, where he was mayor before joining President Barack Obama‘s administration. If elected, he would become the country’s first Latino president.

Castro, who was raised by his grandmother, a Mexican immigrant, is a longtime supporter of LGBTQ rights and early childhood education and in 2010, he fought for federal funding to jumpstart green jobs.

“I am not a frontrunner in this race, but I have not been a frontrunner at any time in my life,” Castro told CNN before his official announcement. “My family’s story is a testament to what is possible when this country gets it right.”

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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

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The 37-year-old Iraq War veteran, who represents parts of Hawaii in the House of Representatives, announced in January she was running. Gabbard is both the first American Samoan and Hindu member of Congress. An economic progressive and critic of America’s armed interventions abroad, she has faced scrutiny for being socially conservative, according to Vox, though she has reversed some of her positions and is pro-choice and now supports same-sex marriage.

“There are a lot of challenges that are facing the American people that I’m concerned about and that I want to help solve,” Gabbard said on

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

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The New York Democrat, 52, announced in January she was throwing her hat in the ring while appaering on

Gillibrand has also been vocal about gun reform and advocates for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and people of color.

“As a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,” she told Colbert of her decision to run. “You are never going to accomplish any of these things if you don’t take on the systems of power that make all of it impossible.”

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Sen. Kamala Harris

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The 54-year-old California Democrat announced her candiday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day while also paying tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman and first black woman to seek the nomination for president for one of America’s two major parties.

Harris, a former prosecutor from the Oakland area, told

While her law enforcement background has drawn scrutiny from some progressives, she has supported criminal justice reform, pushed for reforming bail for suspects and prioritized lowering maternal death rates, according to the

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Pete Buttigieg

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The 37-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced his camapign in late January. He enters as one of the first openly LGTBQ candidates to ever run for the presidency under a major party.

His announcement came in a tweet along with an introductory video where Buttigieg touched on his generational identity as a millennial and a campaign based on “walking away from the politics of the past.”

Though a presumptive longshot, given his low national profile, Buttigieg’s Midwestern roots have possible cache after President Trump narrowly won the 2016 election thanks to victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania nad Wisconsin.

Buttigieg is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, serving in the Navy throughout his deployment. He was born and raised in South Bend, CNN reports. He continued on to Harvard University and later became a consultant at McKinsey.

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Sen. Cory Booker

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The senator from New Jersey announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president on Feb. 1, releasing a video on his website.

Outlining his intentions, the 49-year-old said, “I grew up knowing that the only way we can make change is when people come together.”

Booker — a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School — was elected as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, in 2006, serving until he was elected to the Senate and assumed office in 2013.

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar

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The Minnesota Democrat had a fatefully dramatic announcement in mid-February as snow fell all around.

A three-term senator, Klobuchar, 58, is widely popular in her state. Pundits view her candidacy as viable thanks to her Midwestern background, as Democrats lost the presidency in 2016 by razor-thin margins in a few Midwestern states

But Klobuchar has also recently stirred a larger national profile — in part thanks to her questioning last year of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing amid his sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.

Klobuchar has said she is in support of universal health care, combatting climate change and expanding voter registration access.

“For too long, leaders in Washington have sat on the sidelines while others try to figure out what to do about our changing economy and its impact on our lives, what to do about the disruptive nature of new technologies, income inequality, the political and geographic divides, the changing climate, the tumult in our world,” she said at her announcement, continuing:

“Let’s stop seeing those obstacles as obstacles on our path. Let’s see those obstacles as our path.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders

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In mid-February, Sanders, 77, announced he would again seek the Democratic nomination for president having lost in 2016 to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sanders, a longtime indepedent senator from Vermont who often votes with Democrats, re-enters a world of presidential politics vastly different than his last campaign, in large part thanks to him.

Since launching a underdog effort four years ago which quickly found national support, many of Sanders’ policies — such as universal health care and free public college — have become central liberal proposals.

“We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign and now it’s time to move the revolution forward and make sure that vision, those ideas, are implemented into policy,” Sanders said in announcing he would run again.

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Gov. Jay Inslee

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The Washington governor, 68, announced his candidacy on March 1 with a clear message: He is not afraid to talk about climate change.

In his announcement video, while focusing on his decades-long commitment to environmental policy, Inslee argued he will be the “only candidate” who “will make defeating climate change our nation’s No. 1 priority.” His broader policy platform is also progressive.

Inslee’s political career is decades long, according to CNN: He was first elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 1989. He was subsequently elected to Congress twice and became governor in 2013. The AP reported that under Inslee’s governorship, Washington became the first state to sue Trump in 2017 over his temporary ban on immigration from several majority-Muslim countries.

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Gov. John Hickenlooper

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Hickenlooper, who was governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019, announced in March he was competing for the Democratic nomination for president.

“Ultimately I’m running for president because I believe that not only can I beat Donald Trump, but that I am the person that can bring people together on the other side and actually get stuff done,” he said on

Hickenlooper described himself as a “pragmatic progressive.” Before being elected governor, he served as mayor of Denver and worked as a geologist and restauranteur.

His campaign website touts his previous work expanding pre-K, focusing on job creation and leading the state through natural disasters and the Auroroa movie theater mass shooting.

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Beto O’Rourke

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The 46-year-old former Democratic representative from Texas broke into the national consciousness last year with a much discussed run against Sen. Ted Cruz.

Though O’Rourke lost, the El Paso politician did so by a narrow margin, given Texas’ Republican history.

“The challenges we face are the greatest in living memory. No one person can meet them on their own. Only this country can do that, and only if we build a movement that includes all of us,” O’Rourke wrote along with his March 14 announcement video.

So far, he’s made immgiration and a firm stance against the president’s call for a tighter border central to his message.

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Wayne Messam

The mayor of a mid-sized South Florida city (and former college football star), the 44-year-old Messam’s platform covers many key Democratic priorities, including gun reform and efforts to fight climate change, lower student debt and curb healthcare spending. But he argues that his outsider’s status as a local politician is a boon, not a hindrance.

“Washington is not working for the American people, and these big issues need fresh eyes and bold ideas from someone closer to the people,” Messam, the son of Jamaican immigrants, says on his campaign website.

He announced he was running for president in March.

He underlined his position on student debt in his announcement video, saying, “Every day people are graduating from universities with crippling debt stifling their opportunity for financial mobility; that is what’s broken with this country.”

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Rep. Eric Swalwell

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Swalwell, a 38-year-old four-term representative from outside San Francisco, said on April 8 on

Swalwell’s signature campaign issue will be gun reform, he said. He has framed his anti-gun violence as opposition to the NRA, tweeting on April 3: “I’m not afraid of the NRA. I’m not afraid. No fear.”

“I’ve talked to kids who sit in their classroom afraid that they’ll be the next victim of gun violence,” he said on Colbert’s show. “And they see Washington doing nothing about it after the moments of silence, and they see lawmakers who love their guns more than they love our kids.”

Swalwell also supports other major Democratic initiatives such as universal health care and combatting climate change, according to the

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Rep. Tim Ryan

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A 45-year-old longtime representative from Ohio, Ryan said on April 4 he was seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

“I believe in the free enterprise system,” Ryan said, according to NBC News. “I think we’re not going to solve these national problems without them, but I also believe that we need to reform government and get the government working because I think government can be instrumental.

In a statement Ryan, described by NBC as a centrist, trumpeted an idealistic future. (He has made headlines for criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the msot powerful Democrat in the country.)

“I’m running for president because we have a real shot at uniting again — to restore the dignity of work and the feasibility of the American Dream,” he said his statement.

Still, he faces major obstacles against already nationally-known politicians such as Sens. Booker, Harris, Sanders and Warren.

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President Donald Trump

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In a highly unsual move, Trump actually began running for re-election before he was sworn-in for his first term. According to the

The president’s surprising win in 2016 has made the pundit class conflicted about predictions for re-election, though the common arguments against Trump include his historically low approval rating, even though presidents are much more often re-elected than not.

As the

In February, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who has also campaigned as a Libertarian, confirmed he would challenge Trump as a Republican.

In January, Trump boasted to his liberal opponents: “The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of [my] achievements.”

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Gov. Bill Weld

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Weld, 73, governed Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997 and while he has campaigned as a libertarian — running for the vice presidency there in 2016 — he switched back to the Republican Party to challenge Trump.

“We cannot sit passively as our precious democracy slips quietly into darkness,” he said in announcing his long-shot bid in February.

“Congress must do its duty and, as citizens, we must do ours,” he said. The

An intra-party challenge to a sitting president is not completely unheard of but it is unusual — and unlikely to be successful. Still, Weld said in February the he hopes “to see the Republican Party assume once again the mantle of being the party of Lincoln.”

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Next Up: Joe Biden?

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The Democratic field is already crowded — with primaries not scheduled until early 2020 — but there are still more potential nominees as the party looks for its best challenger to President Trump.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, has argued he’s the most qualified person for the job. While he chose not to run in 2016, he has not yet made up his mind about 2020.

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April 16, 2019 Mittie B Brack News