Rep. Moulton Joins The Race - Updated

Representative Seth Moulton, from Massachusetts, has announced that he is running for president. I've updated the lists below. Of the 15 names left on the Potential and I'm Probably Not Running lists, I'd say Joe Biden is still a strong possibility to join the race; the rest will probably sit this one out.

Note: I recently split the Potential list into two sections, those who are still doing some of the things potential candidates do, and those whose names were mentioned as potential candidates at some point, but aren't doing anything that looks like running.

Potential Democratic Candidates, in alphabetical order:

1. Stacey Abrams (2018 candidate for Georgia governor) 
2. Michael Bennet (Colorado Senator) added 2/10/19
3. Joe Biden (Former VP)
4. Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana)
5. Bill de Blasio (Mayor of New York City)
6. Terry McAuliffe (Former governor of Virginia)
7. Chris Murphy (Connecticut senator)

I'm Probably Not Running: Long-shot (or in some cases, fantasy) candidates who were once mentioned somewhere, anywhere, as possible potential presidents, but who aren't doing any of the things an actual candidate must do: 

1. Jerry Brown (former Governor of California)
2. Mark Cuban (Businessman, owner of the Dallas Mavericks)
3. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Actor) added Nov. 10
4. Tim Kaine (Virginia senator, 2016 VP nominee)
5. Joe Kennedy (Congressman from Massachusetts) added Nov. 10
6. John Kerry (former Secretary of State, 2004 Democratic nominee) added Nov. 10 
7. Mark Warner (Virginia senator) added Nov. 10
8. Mark Zuckerberg (Businessman, founder of Facebook)

I'm Running: Declared Democratic Candidates, in order of their announcement

1. John Delaney (7/28/17) 
2. Andrew Yang (11/6/17) 
3. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
4. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
5. Julián Castro (1/12/19)
6. Kirsten Gillibrand (1/16/19)  
7. Kamala Harris (1/21/19)
8. Pete Buttigieg (1/23/19)
9. Howard Schultz (1/29/19) * Running as an Independent 
10. Marianne Williamson (1/30/19)
11. Cory Booker (2/1/19)
12. Amy Klobuchar (2/10/19)
13. Bernie Sanders (2/19/19)
14. Jay Inslee  (3/1/19)
15. John Hickenlooper (3/4/19)
16. Beto O'Rourke (3/14/19)
17. Eric Swalwell (4/5/19)
18. Tim Ryan (4/5/19)
19. Seth Moulton (4/22/19) 

I'm Not Running

Oprah Winfrey

Andrew Cuomo
Sheryl Sandberg, added Sept. 8
Jason Kander, added Oct. 17
Robert Iger, added Oct. 22
Michael Avenatti, December 4, 2018
Deval Patrick, December 5, 2018
Martin O'Malley, January 3, 2019
Luis Gutierrez, added January 7, 2019
Tom Steyer, January 9, 2019
Bob Casey, January 19, 2019
Eric Garcetti, January 29, 2019
Andrew Gillum, January 29, 2019
Mitch Landrieu, added February 11, 2019
Eric Holder, 3/4/19
Jeff Merkley, 3/5/19
Sherrod Brown, 3/7/10

I'm Not Running Anymore: Declared candidates who have dropped out

Richard Ojeda (1/25/19)

Days until Election Day: 560

Update on Tuesday afternoon. The Washington Post says Joe Biden will enter the race on Thursday: 

Former vice president Joe Biden is planning to enter the 2020 presidential race, joining a crowded field with a candidacy that will test many of the questions facing the Democratic Party.

Biden is expected to make the announcement in a video Thursday morning, according to a source close to him, which will be followed by a trip Monday to a union hall in Pittsburgh.

He will enter the race in an unfamiliar position, as a front-runner, following campaigns in 1988 and 2008 that ended in extreme failures.

Was Biden's 2008 campaign an "extreme failure?" I would argue it wasn't. Joe didn't get elected president but his campaign put him in position to be selected to be Obama's VP, a post in which he served successfully for eight years. His service as VP is also the reason he comes in as a front-runner this time around. Talking Points Memo adds a couple of details: 

Biden currently leads most national and early-state polls, buoyed by sky-high name recognition, his appeal to blue-collar workers and nostalgia amongst Democrats for the Obama era. But he’s a veteran of two failed presidential bids, and it remains to be seen whether his support grows or declines once he officially enters the race.

Biden is the last major candidate expected to announce his presidential run. The crowded Democratic field is closing in on 20 candidates, the largest in a generation, and Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) currently have the strongest poll numbers in the scattered field. (Read more here.)

I'm going to wait until it's official to move him to the I'm Running list. 

Update #2 on Wednesday morning. Jonathan Bernstein ponders Joe Biden's chances: 

Former Vice President Joe Biden plans to finally make his candidacy official this week, and so it’s time for some assessments and analogies. Philip Klein asks whether Biden is similar to Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Ed Kilgore is reminded more of Jeb (!) Bush in 2016.

I’d say it’s awfully hard to see Biden as Giuliani. Sure, Biden’s (very, very) long political history includes some votes that don’t fit well with the Democratic Party in 2019, but there’s nothing comparable to Giuliani’s violation of party orthodoxy on abortion. The former vice president at this point basically promises Obama-Biden policies, not whatever Senator Biden favored in the 1970s. That doesn’t mean he’ll automatically inherit Barack Obama’s supporters. But there’s a big difference between what Biden is up against and the absolute veto that Giuliani faced from core Republican groups in 2008.

I don’t think the Bush analogy is quite right either. Bush’s problem in 2016 wasn’t that the party had turned against the “establishment,” whatever that means. It was that many party actors wanted nothing to do with a third Bush presidency. It’s true that Jeb took an early endorsement lead, but he stalled badly afterward and a careful look at his supporters revealed that he was basically the head of a Bush faction, not a coalition-style candidate. I I don’t see anything similar with Biden. He may or may not appeal to a wide range of party actors, but he’s not relying solely on his own long-time supporters. 

The candidate Biden would like to emulate, I think, is Walter Mondale in 1984. Mondale, like Biden, had been a reasonably successful vice president and a well-regarded senator. Like Biden, he didn’t really inspire a lot of enthusiasm, and his liberal history seemed a bit old-fashioned, certainly compared to first-time candidate Jesse Jackson. Mondale took a large lead in endorsements and in the polls heading into Iowa, won big, and then was upset by the relatively obscure Gary Hart in New Hampshire. He almost lost the nomination to him, but was eventually saved as enough Democrats stuck with what they knew – after all, no one really disliked Mondale, and his policy positions were squarely within what most party actors wanted.

One danger is that Biden will wind up as Mondale lite, and that won’t be good enough. It’s easy to imagine him getting a weak plurality of endorsements (or worse) by Iowa, rather than the solid majority Mondale had. His polling lead isn’t especially impressive so far, and other candidates could easily surge and catch him. I don’t think he has many strong enemies, but Seth Masket’s data suggests quite a few party actors aren’t all that interested in him.

Another danger is that even if Biden winds up in the same place as Mondale – one of the finalists for the nomination – he might not get as lucky with his opponent. If Biden and Bernie Sanders are the only two remaining after the early events, most party actors will presumably swing strongly to Biden. But Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Cory Booker? Amy Klobuchar? I’m not sure Biden retains his support against any of them.

Add it all up, and I’m going to repeat something I’ve been saying for a while: This nomination fight looks wide open to me, with a dozen or so candidates having a realistic shot and no one having much better than a 10 percent chance of winning. I’ll certainly be impressed if Biden rolls out an eye-popping slate of endorsements this week and surges in the polls. But even then, I find it hard to believe he’ll end up any stronger than Mondale did in 1984. And Mondale barely won.