The Senate’s top Democratic obstructionists all have one thing in common: They are planning to run for President in 2020.
Axios compiled a list over the weekend of the ten Democratic senators who have voted against President Trump’s nominees most often, and the top six are all possible 2020 candidates. Ranked by the frequency of their votes against Trump’s nominees, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., take the first two slots, coming in at 94.6 percent and 91.9 percent respectively. They’re followed by Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., (86.5 percent), Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (86.1 percent), Cory Booker, D-N.J., (85.7 percent), and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., (83.8 percent). Each of those six senators has attracted speculation they’ll run in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary in 2020.
As Axios noted, Gillibrand supplied the only vote against Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. The former centrist’s transformation into a staunch progressive seems to be complete, drawing coveted profiles in major publications, and ingratiating her with the hardcore base she would likely need to make a presidential run. Jeff Merkley’s campaign may not have caught your notice, but he’s made some less-than-subtle moves recently as well.
The question, then, is whether senators interested in a presidential bid are strategically “resisting” Trump nominees as they vie for support from the progressive base in 2020, or whether the party’s leading candidates from the upper chamber happen to be the most anti-Trump because that’s where Democrats are ideologically. The answer is probably a combination of both factors, but it means the 2020 field will likely be crowded with resistors, leaving a big opening for someone from the center.
