The “Who is running in 2020?” tea leaves thread, Part 3

[Mr. Morden]

Biden:

https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-2020-presidential-election-imminent-4e9500d1-6873-45b8-9a89-7f1afe2c4121.html

Advisers to former Vice President Biden say it will be apparent within days whether he has decided to activate a presidential campaign that would likely launch by early April.

Between the lines: A Biden insider tells me the "final, final" decision is now "imminent."

Biden, 76, returns this week from a family vacation in the Virgin Islands, where he was expected to make a final decision on whether to make one more big run after more than four decades of public service.

The Smart Brevity from Bidenworld: The former vice president is highly likely — but not absolutely certain — to announce soon (by early April).

We're told the weekend in St. Croix was to run through the toll that a campaign would take on the family, and everyone is on board.

If Biden decides to go for it, he'll start pressing political allies and potential staff members for firm commitments to join him.

That will be the true "tell," advisers say, and will quickly become widely known.

de Blasio world doubts he'll go through with it, and/or thinks it would be a bad idea:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/11/bill-de-blasio-2020-1213856

As de Blasio touted his liberal record in Iowa and South Carolina in recent weeks, nearly three dozen former and current aides, consultants and allies who spoke to POLITICO panned the idea or doubted that the mayor would end up going through with a run for the Democratic nomination. Aside from the few people working on the nascent effort, only two said de Blasio should run.
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It’s a stark contrast to the typical dynamics of a presidential exploration, where aides and allies tend to egg on the potential candidate. Indeed, the strongest advocate for a de Blasio candidacy seems to be de Blasio himself. Gone is the stable of trusted consultants whose advice he once relied on so heavily that he designated them de facto city employees during his first term. In their place are two City Hall aides volunteering their spare time to work on his explorations, and his wife, Chirlane McCray.
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Still, de Blasio has been making moves.

He tapped City Hall communications director Mike Casca, a 2016 Bernie Sanders alum, and Jon Paul Lupo, a top government aide with experience on national Senate races, to work on the effort in their spare time. Last month he traveled to the battleground state of Iowa, trekking through a snowstorm to tout his successes in New York City to small groups of voters.

[History505]

https://twitter.com/Carrasquillo/status/1105128877079310336

[GeorgiaModerate]

Stacey Abrams is out, says she won't run for President earlier than 2028.

Edit: I misinterpreted the story.  She says 2028 is the earliest in her current career plan, but isn't ruling anything out for 2020 yet.

[Tender Branson]

Stacey Abrams is out, says she won't run for President earlier than 2028.

Good woman.

I hope she runs for Senate instead.

[aaroncd107]

Biden:

https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-2020-presidential-election-imminent-4e9500d1-6873-45b8-9a89-7f1afe2c4121.html

Advisers to former Vice President Biden say it will be apparent within days whether he has decided to activate a presidential campaign that would likely launch by early April.

Between the lines: A Biden insider tells me the "final, final" decision is now "imminent."

Biden, 76, returns this week from a family vacation in the Virgin Islands, where he was expected to make a final decision on whether to make one more big run after more than four decades of public service.

The Smart Brevity from Bidenworld: The former vice president is highly likely — but not absolutely certain — to announce soon (by early April).

We're told the weekend in St. Croix was to run through the toll that a campaign would take on the family, and everyone is on board.

If Biden decides to go for it, he'll start pressing political allies and potential staff members for firm commitments to join him.

That will be the true "tell," advisers say, and will quickly become widely known.

Biden has been “announcing soon” for the past 3 months.

[Mr. Morden]

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/433518-orourke-weighing-possible-iowa-trip-ahead-of-2020-announcement-report

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) is looking at a possible trip to Iowa as he weighs a 2020 presidential run.

The El Paso Democrat’s team has been in talks with the campaign of Eric Giddens, a Democrat running in a state Senate special election, for O’Rourke to canvass for the candidate this weekend, according to a CNN report.

O’Rourke and his team have also been putting together a video boosting Giddens’s campaign, CNN reported.

A report from The New York Times on Monday also noted that an Iowa visit by O’Rourke could come as early as this week.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Stacey Abrams is out, says she won't run for President earlier than 2028.

I will be there with bells on, but she has business to finish in Georgia first.

[Xing]

Stacey Abrams is out, says she won't run for President earlier than 2028.

Good woman.

I hope she runs for Senate instead.

[Spiffy]

Uhh...

https://twitter.com/staceyabrams/status/1105192554302103552?s=21

[TarHeelDem]

https://twitter.com/staceyabrams/status/1105192554302103552

lol

[GeorgiaModerate]

Uhh...

https://twitter.com/staceyabrams/status/1105192554302103552?s=21

Mea culpa: I misinterpreted the original story in The Hill.  She says 2028 is the earliest in her current career plan, but isn't ruling anything out for 2020 yet.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/JamesPindell/status/1105205383059120134

[Mr. Morden]

Swalwell sticking to "end of the month":

https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/1105223422701944837

[Canis]

who would even vote from him

[beaver2.0]

who would even vote from him

Eric Swalwell.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Swalwell sticking to "end of the month":

https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/1105223422701944837

I assume anyone announcing at the end of the quarter will probably set it up so they don't report anything to the FEC for the quarter.

[Canis]

who would even vote from him

Eric Swalwell.

Ok we've got one

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

God Swalwell is delusional. Does he think he has any ability to win a national office after the whole nuke thing?

[beaver2.0]

who would even vote from him

Eric Swalwell.

Ok we've got one

If you're referring to me then no.  I was simply saying that Eric Swalwell might get a singular vote out of himself.  Maybe.

[TarHeelDem]

Rep. Swalwell's one of the strongest voices out there on intelligence and cybersecurity and is a voice for a new generation of leadership. If we look at the field as 17 (fourteen declared plus Biden, O'Rourke, and Swalwell), he'd be somewhere between my fourth and sixth choice.

[Canis]

who would even vote from him

Eric Swalwell.

Ok we've got one

If you're referring to me then no.  I was simply saying that Eric Swalwell might get a singular vote out of himself.  Maybe.

I know I was counting his vote not yours

[Mr. Morden]

O'Rourke will be in Iowa on Saturday:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/03/11/iowa-ad-conservative-group-hits-beto-orourke-entitlement-amid-worry-could-flip-texas-2020

O'Rourke will knock on doors in Waterloo and urge Iowans to the polls ahead of a special election next Tuesday for a vacant state Senate seat, Iowa Democratic officials confirmed Monday night.

Biden to headline two events this week that'll serve as a "test drive" for a potential campaign, a speech before the International Association of Firefighters on Tuesday, and then a Delaware Democratic Party dinner in Dover on Saturday:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/heading-big-week-joe-biden-gains-key-encouragement-firefighters-union-n981856

Advisers insist that Biden still hasn’t made [a decision]. He and his wife spent last week on what may well have been a final pre-campaign vacation in St. Croix, ahead of an informal deadline that his team had set as the goal for getting the green light to execute the campaign plan long in the works.

No final decisions have been made about what would be the campaign platform, either. But advisers say the starting point would be what they sketched out as he considered entering the 2016 race.
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On another front, Biden has said he is prepared to reject the support of a super PAC to boost his candidacy — surrendering what would be a potential advantage in the crowded field given his longstanding ties to major Democratic donors. Super PACs are political action committees that can take unlimited contributions from wealthy donors, but they may not coordinate with the campaigns.
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His team has recently impressed upon him the timeline needed to prepare for a campaign launch in early or mid-April. While no campaign jobs have been formally offered, discussions underway for months with potential staff have gone from theoretical opportunities to specific roles, following Biden’s instructions that his campaign team “reflect the country” with diversity in senior roles.

The coming week may be a point of no return for him, as aides recognize that the party’s patience is wearing thin. To the extent advisers identify any potential hurdles he’s still reckoning with, they are parallel: how and when to engage with attacks from the most strident partisan voices in both parties, including Trump.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/DavidWright_CNN/status/1105462609212555265

O'Rourke:

https://www.businessinsider.com/beto-orourke-facebook-ads-teasing-decision-on-2020-presidential-race-2019-3

Former Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas, who has been mulling a 2020 presidential run for months, is running paid advertisements on Facebook alluding to a potential campaign.

O'Rourke, who is trekking to the early primary state of Iowa this week, started running the ads sometime on Wednesday. The ads say that O'Rourke has come to a final decision about his plans for 2020.

"People in communities across the country have been reaching out and asking me if I'm planning on running in 2020," the ad reads. "Amy and I have made a decision on that. Sign up today to be first to know what's next. I'd like for you to be a part of it."

The ads' performance data, according to the Facebook ad archive, show high indexing and engagement in California, a now large and early primary voting state for the 2020 race.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Beto is the biggest attention whore I’ve ever witnessed in politics, Trump aside.

[henster]

Beto is the biggest attention whore I’ve ever witnessed in politics, Trump aside.

I don't get the point in dragging it out if he's decided to run. There's no benefit in waiting since he's lost so much support from a few months ago.