2020 Elections

CBS News Los Angeles reports: Mayor Eric Garcetti will announce in Los Angeles today that he will not run for president in 2020, according to three sources. Garcetti had been considering a presidential campaign for months and traveled the country raising money for Democrats. No mayor has ever jumped directly from City Hall to the White House, and the prospects …

Politico reports: Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign hasn’t officially launched yet but it’s already melting down. Two-and-a-half weeks after she told CNN she had decided to run for the White House—an announcement that even her own staff didn’t know was coming, after weeks of debating the timing of the rollout—the 37-year-old congresswoman has struggled to contain the chaos. Campaign manager Rania …

Axios reports: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) broke records Monday when her televised town hall became the most viewed event of its kind in cable news history, according to CNN. The town hall averaged 1.957 million views — the most of any cable-news, single-candidate town hall and 75 percent more than CNN’s average for that hour over the past four weeks, …

NBC News reports: Joe Biden said Monday he’s closing in on a final decision about the 2020 presidential race, making preparations for a campaign but stopping short of a definitive signal he’ll run. “I’m running the traps on this. I don’t want to make this a fool’s errand,” the former vice president told the audience at a ticketed event in …

Reuters reports: A day after Howard Schultz said he might run for U.S. president, a heckler shouted “don’t help elect Trump” at the former Starbucks CEO, voicing concerns that his independent bid could help President Donald Trump win re-election in 2020. “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire, asshole,” shouted the heckler at a Schultz book promotion in New York …

Reuters reports: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Monday endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) for president in the 2020 election, saying she “embraces the future.” Lieu, who is among the most outspoken critics of President Trump, backed his home state senator over a steadily growing field of other Democratic candidates. Harris on Sunday officially launched her bid for the presidency in …

“I am seriously thinking of running for president. I will run as a centrist independent, outside of the two-party system we’re living at a most-fragile time not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president, but the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what’s necessary on behalf of the American people and are …

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown writes: I’ve been peppered with calls from the national media about my “relationship” with Kamala Harris, particularly since it became obvious that she was going to run for president. Most of them, I have not returned. Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by …

The Atlantic reports: These days, the difference between the parties is starker than it’s ever been in modern times. Yet here comes Howard Schultz, a billionaire who feels that he might be the answer to American politics, and that he’d run for president as an independent. Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO, says in a 60 Minutes interview already recorded but …

Axios reports: Most Republicans are of the opinion that Trump is “unassailable” in a GOP primary, but some are anxious enough about his vulnerabilities that they’re looking at Larry Hogan, the popular centrist governor of Maryland, as a possible alternative. Hogan’s inauguration speech after winning reelection in November was viewed as “an unmistakable act of aggression” by the White House, …

Yahoo News reports: Three years after fighting a surprisingly competitive Democratic primary race against Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is making another run for the White House. Two sources with direct knowledge of his plans told Yahoo News that Sanders, an independent and self-described “democratic socialist,” plans to announce his presidential bid imminently. While Sanders has been mulling a …

From a just-published profile in GQ Magazine: “There are people who are very big into diversity but whose views end up being not particularly sympathetic to working people, whether they’re white or black or Latino,” he said. “My main belief is that we need to bring together a coalition of people—of black and white and Latino and Asian-American and Native-American—around …

ABC News reports: Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old, two-term Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, took a significant step toward a run for the White House on Wednesday, announcing that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee, the precursor to an official campaign. He was commissioned as a Navy intelligence officer in 2009 and in 2013, while serving as mayor, he …

The Washington Post reports: Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City who is considering a presidential run, appeared before reporters in Annapolis on Tuesday to chide Washington over the government shutdown and talk about the importance of compromise. “You can’t be an absolutist . . . life is much more complex than that,” he said. “You want to …

The Atlantic reports: Tom Steyer is launching an effort to make every Democrat campaigning to run against President Donald Trump first come out in support of impeachment. Volunteers from Steyer’s organization, Need to Impeach, already showed up at several of Elizabeth Warren’s events earlier this month during her first swing through Iowa and tried to pin her down on impeachment. …

NBC News reports: Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., announced on Monday that she will run for president in 2020, becoming the third senator since December to enter what is likely to be a crowded Democratic primary field. “I am running for president,” Harris, the first African-American to formally enter the 2020 fray, said on an early-morning Martin Luther King Jr. Day …

The Hill reports: Former President Jimmy Carter urged Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to run for president in an Instagram Live video on Sunday. Booker, who is known for his social media savvy, took to the platform to film a road trip through Georgia with civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) ahead of MLK Day. “I’m very glad to have …

CNN reports: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand defended her decision to call on former Sen. Al Franken to resign after allegations of unwanted touching and kissing were made against him, earning praise from a friendly audience of Iowans in Sioux City on Friday. Gillibrand said Friday that she made the decision to help push him out because “my silence meant I was …

The Washington Post reports: Advisers to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz have been exploring the possibility of launching an independent bid for the White House in 2020, according to two people who have been informed of the discussions. The entry of a high-profile billionaire Democrat outside the traditional party structure would add an unpredictable dynamic to the increasingly sprawling campaign …

The Baltimore Sun reports:  Sen. Kamala Harris has selected Baltimore for her campaign headquarters if she runs for president, as expected, in 2020, according to sources familiar with the California Democrat’s plans. Harris picked Baltimore because of its diversity, its proximity to Washington and because it is in the Eastern time zone, the sources said, who requested anonymity because Harris …