2020 Notable Presidential Candidates

Alex Kim, Staff Writer

With the 2020 presidential election less than two years away, Democratic candidates are streaming in to join the field. While a handful of well-known names have recently declared their bid, more are predicted to follow in the weeks to come. As of now, however, the following are some of the most notable candidates:

 

U.S. Senator of New York, Kirsten Gillibrand announced her presidential bid on January 15 and vowed to “fight for other people’s kids as hard as [she] would fight for [her] own.” Although Gillibrand was previously a conservative Democrat, she has more recently become one of the leading liberal voices in the government. As a champion of the #MeToo Movement, LGBTQ advocate, and gun law reformist, Gillibrand and her campaign will focus on fighting for victims of sexual assault, gender and racial equality, and a populist economic agenda.

 

Known for her tough questioning of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees (and recently, the Supreme Court Justice, Brett M. Kavanaugh) as well as her liberal voting record, U.S. Senator of California, Kamala Harris, announced her candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Formerly, she served as California’s attorney general and San Francisco’s district attorney. Thus, Harris is a strong supporter of criminal justice reform and has also focused her campaign on immigration and economic issues such as tax cuts for working and middle class, Medicare, free college, and equal pay.

 

Pete Buttigieg, 37 year old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and military veteran, is running as the voice of the young and is the first openly LGBTQ candidate. After declaring his campaign on January 23, he explained that he will focus on “walk[ing] away from politics of the past” by connecting global economies through investing in advanced industries and higher education.

 

Massachusetts’ Senator and former advisor to President Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren is known for her vocal criticism of Wall Street. Confirming her bid on February 9, Warren has focused her campaign on ending Washington corruption and income inequality by regulating big corporations and proposing a wealth tax. Other issues that she has included are efforts to relieve student debt, Medicare, and the Green New Deal.

 

With a reputation as the Senate’s pragmatist and one of the most bipartisan cooperators, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, is presenting herself to be a straight-talking moderate who is not afraid to point out problems that certain policies may face in the future. After launching her presidential bid on February 10, she weighed in on progressive proposals such as universal healthcare, Green New Deal, and tuition-free college, and while she supports these ideas, Klobuchar believes that they are not yet plausible and wants to focus on more immediate alternatives that could work toward these goals in the long run.

 

Bernie Sanders is an independent U.S. Senator of Vermont, and this is his second time running for president. He is a self-declared democratic socialist, and after his underdog effort that gained nationwide support in 2016, his distinctive proposals such as universal health care, tuition-free college, and $15 minimum wage have been embraced by many liberal candidates. Sanders hopes to make a comeback this year in order to take the political revolution that he started four years and move it forward.