West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda is running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
He filed a paperwork Sunday with the Federal Election Commission to state the organization of a principal campaign committee.
Orjeda also reportedly sent an email to supporters teasing an announcement on Monday at noon, saying, “Because like I said, we are not done fighting.”
The move by Ojeda, a retired U.S. Army major, comes days after he lost to Republican Carol Miller for a U.S. House seat in West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District.
During the campaign, he stated a willingness to work with President Trump, echoing the conciliatory tone another West Virginia Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin, has taken in a state Trump handily won in 2016.
In a statement to The Intercept, Ojeda had some harsh words for his own party.
“I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I’ll stay a Democrat, but that’s because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be,” he told the outlet, which was the first to report his candidacy. “The reason why the Democratic Party fell from grace is because they become nothing more than elitist, that was it. Goldman Sachs, that’s who they were. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party that fights for the working class and that’s exactly what I do. I will stand with unions wholeheartedly and that’s the problem — the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.”
Ojeda joins one other Democrat initiating a long-shot effort for the White House in 2020. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., who has been a vocal critic of Trump, declared his candidacy in July 2017.
