The following is a list of people who have been mentioned (by either themselves or others) as potential candidates in 2020. Folks are on the list whether or not they have claimed or disclaimed any interest in running. When an individual suggests publicly that he or she is not interested in running, their name is struck through. It should be noted that Senators who are up in 2018 deliver an obligatory denial that they are not planning to run for president. There is no penalty for changing their minds after they have been re-elected.
The three candidates who are polling best at the present time, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are respectively 75, 76 and 69, an average age of 73 years. [Chris Cillizza] By the time of the 2020 election they will be an average age of 75. Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate, will be 74 years of age. In 2020, the median age of people in the United States of voting age and older will be an estimated 39 years of age.
While it is certainly premature and much has transpired since then, a January 2018 Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showed the following among Democrats: Joe Biden – 27%; Bernie Sanders – 16%; Hillary Clinton – 13%; Oprah Winfrey – 13%; Elizabeth Warren – 10%; Cory Booker – 4%; Kamala Harris – 4%; Andrew Cuomo – 2%; Kirsten Gillibrand – 1%.
Ultimately, the list will narrow for a variety of reasons. Among those reasons is “opposition research” done by folks who are supporting other candidates. Events from a person’s past inevitably come to light in a presidential campaign and take on added significance as a result of the standards of the time.
The list of people without government experience is followed by a list of current or past government officials who have been mentioned or have done something to suggest they are thinking about running for president.
Dwayne Johnson – Actor
Bob Iger – Disney
Howard Schultz – Founder & Exec. Chairman, Starbucks
Mark Cuban – Businessman and Owner, Dallas Mavericks
Kanye West – Entertainer
Tom Steyer – Billionaire philanthropist
Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg – CEO, Facebook
Oprah Winfrey – CEO, OWN
Michael Bloomberg
Andrew Cuomo (D) – Governor of New York
John Hickenlooper (D) – Governor of Colorado
Steve Bullock (D) – Governor of Montana
Jerry Brown (D) – Governor of California
Jay Inslee (D) – Governor of Washington
Gina Raimondo (D) – Governor of Rhode Island
Martin O’Malley (D) – former Governor of Maryland
Terry McAuliffe (D) – former Governor of Virginia
Deval Patrick (D) – former Governor of Massachusetts
Congressman John Delaney (D) – Announced 7/22/17
Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D)
Congressman Tim Ryan (D)
Congressman Seth Moulton (D
Congressperson Maxine Waters (D)
Congressperson Tulsi Gabbard (D)
Congressman Eric Swalwell (D)
Congressman Joe Kennedy (D)
Cory Booker (D) – U.S. Senator
Amy Klobuchar (D) – U.S. Senator
Kamala Harris (D) – U.S. Senator
Bernie Sanders (D) – U.S. Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand (D) – U.S. Senator
Tim Kaine (D) – U.S. Senator
Elizabeth Warren (D) – U.S. Senator
Chris Murphy (D) – U.S. Senator
Sherrod Brown (D) – U.S. Senator
Mark Warner (D) – U.S. Senator
Lincoln Chafee (D) – former mayor, Rhode Island governor and U.S. Senator
Al Franken (D) – former U.S. Senator
Eric Holder (D) – former Attorney General
Joe Biden (D) – former Vice President, former U.S. Senator
John Kerry (D) – former U.S. Senator, former Secretary of State, former general election candidate for president
Eric Garcetti (D) – Mayor of Los Angeles
Mitch Landrieu (D) – Mayor of New Orleans
Bill de Blasio (D) – Mayor of New York City
Pete Buttigieg (D) – Mayor South Bend, Indiana
Julian Castro (D) – former Secretary of HUD
Another extremely premature look at the 2020 election finds the following results in 3 mid-western states, two of which Trump won and a third which he lost by a fraction.
The question put to voters in these three states was whether they approve of the job Trump is doing and whether Trump deserves re-election. Here are the results.
| Job approval | Job disapproval | |
| Michigan | 36% | 54% |
| Wisconsin | 36% | 52% |
| Minnesota | 38% | 51% |
| Deserves re-election | Give new person a chance | |
| Michigan (Trump won in 2016) | 28% | 62% |
| Wisconsin (Trump won in 2016) | 31% | 63% |
| Minnesota (Trump lost in 2016) | 30% | 60% |
| [NBC/Marist, 7/19] | ||
2018
95 days until the election
The majority of eligible voters are 53 years of age and younger – 135 million of them. There are 93 million folks who are 54 years of age and older.
However, in the 2014 mid-term election the “old folks” cast 57 million votes and the ‘youngsters” cast 36 million votes. [PEW, 6/19/18]
The Brennan Center for Justice reviewed a years’ worth of data from the Election Administration and Voting Survey. It reviewed voter roll purge rates across the country, in counties large and small, calculating the rates for some 6,600 jurisdictions. Among its key findings:
More people are being purged from voting rolls now than at any time in the past decade. Between the federal elections of 2006 and 2008, boards of election collectively removed 12 million voters from their rolls. In the two years leading up to the presidential election of 2016 that number grew to 16 million, an increase of 33 percent.
Voters often don’t know they’ve been removed until they arrive at the polls on Election Day. [New Republic, 7/24/18]