The “Who is running in 2020?” tea leaves thread

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Some more possible indicators…this year, in addition to the remaining presidential candidates themselves, the following people did speeches at CPAC:

Joni Ernst
Carly Fiorina
Mike Lee
Paul Ryan
Tim Scott
Scott Walker

Fiorina and Walker of course ran for prez this year, but they’d already dropped out of the race by the time of CPAC, so their appearances could be read as interested in either being VP this year or president in 2020.

Also, the Des Moines Register had a story a few days ago about the fact that many eventual presidential candidates from years past started out by doing surrogate visits to Iowa for other candidates in the previous cycle.  Here are the names of some of the out-of-state politicians who visited Iowa in the past year in order to campaign for their presidential candidate of choice.  Some of these might run for president themselves in 2020 or later, or maybe for vice president this year:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/27/whos-running-president-2020-iowa-visits-offer-hints/82230962/

Tammy Baldwin
Corey Booker
Julian Castro
Bill de Blasio
Kirsten Gillibrand
Tim Kaine
Amy Klobuchar
Tom Perez

Marsha Blackburn
Jim DeMint
Cory Gardner
Mike Lee
Kristi Noem
Sarah Palin
Ben Sasse

I can share more a bit later, but I was at CPAC this year, and some of them (like Walker and Ryan) had very high profile speaking times (Walker was the opening speaker, for instance).  But, I actually think some of Walker's moves might be towards getting nominated this year as a compromise choice.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

One other CPAC note:

Scott Walker stayed around CPAC for a few hours after his speech and was willing to talk with attendees and take pictures with them.  He was by far the most high profile politician to do that (the only other ones that I met at anything other than a formal organized event were Kelli Ward and Jim Gilmore).

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Walker keeping his options open.

Some excerpts:

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I wonder if this means he is keeping his options open for 2016 as a white knight nominee?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Swing stages

California
Oregon
Washington
Hawaii 
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Delaware
Maryland
Florida
North Carolina
Arizona
Iowa
Wisconsin
Michigan
Virginia
West Virginia
Ohio
Indiana
Colorado
Nevada
New Hampshire

TN Volunteer would be proud.

Are we sure that this poster isn't him?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I left blank the states that were unclear based on the rest, but I guess that Warren is just a Northeast candidate in this map.  Even all of the others would only get her to 90.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Guys, can we please leave your own personal predictions of who should run or what the electoral map will look like for other threads?  There are plenty of other threads for that.  This thread is for tracking news on what the prospective 2020 presidential candidates are doing.

The news today is that Mike Lee is looking to move into the Senate leadership:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/lee-leadership-senate-221818

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I leave it to you to decipher whether that means Lee is more or less likely to run for president in a few years.

I wasn't making a prediction- I was just putting his into a map form.  Sorry, though!

[100% pro-life no matter what]

With Trump now the presumptive Republican nominee, I have to assume that we are so far through the looking glass as a country that a Kanye run is absolutely a real possibility.

Do we have to consider the possibility of a Trump vs. Kanye general election (assuming that Kanye runs as a Democrat)?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Santorum told me that he still wants to be president.  Let's see if he gives it another go!

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Pence and Santorum, among others, spoke at the Values Voters Summit this weekend:

http://www.valuesvotersummit.org

I know for a fact that Santorum wants to be president badly and that he was hoping to get nominated at a contested convention this year.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Everyone is saying that Cuomo is too moderate to win a Democratic nomination, but he is literally the guy who said that pro-lifers have no place in New York.  How liberal does one have to go to win the nomination?