Klobuchar hasn't done much to signal she's gearing up for a presidential run; people just assume she will because she's a fairly well-known female senator from the Midwest.
I don’t agree with that actually. Klobuchar has sent plenty of signals over the years that she’s interested in running for president, though most of those signals actually came before the 2016 general election, when she probably figured there most likely wouldn’t be an open Democratic contest again until 2024.
E.g., she campaigned for Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire during the primaries, and then did another New Hampshire trip to campaign for Clinton and other Dems in the fall. And she met with both the Iowa and South Carolina delegations at the DNC in 2016. I’m not sure what is the point of doing that if you’re not interested in a future presidential run.
But then, post-2016 GE, she did make two more trips to Iowa last year, and spoke at the CAP Ideas Conference along with a bunch of other 2020ers. She’s also doing more national interviews now than she used to, which by itself doesn’t prove anything, but is still more likely to be done by Senators with presidential ambitions than by those without said ambitions. She’s been asked a few times about 2020, and tends to give a non-answer and changes the subject, saying she’s “focused” on reelection. Which again, doesn’t prove anything by itself, but I’d still call it more suggestive than what you get from folks like Kaine, who just give blanket denials.
