With the election only nine months away and a Rebublican president who has been impeached and later acquitted by the Senate, there are several democratic candidate contenders for the 2020 election vying for the nomination. Most recently, the candidates competed against each other in the New Hampshire primaries.  

This article is a guide to understanding the candidate’s background, policies, and chances of winning the nomination and the presidency. 

The Candidates:

Joe Biden – Joe Biden is best-known as the former Vice President to Barack Obama form 2009-2017. Before that, he served as a Delaware senator, from 1973 to 2009. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988 and 2008. Biden has the highest name recognition among all the candidates, and many believe that his promise to return America to a moderately liberal state like the ¨Obama era¨ has helped his campaign strive.  

Michael Bloomberg – Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American politician, businessman, and author. Bloomberg was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. He has been a strong gun safety advocate, making it a major point in his campaign.  As a billionaire, Bloomberg is using his great wealth to self-fund his campaign and is focusing more on ads than attending primaries.

Pete Buttigieg – Pete Buttigieg is the former Mayor of South Bend, Indian. He won the Iowa caucus with 26.2 percent of the vote. If elected, he will be the first openly gay and youngest president (39) in US history. Buttigieg is an American combat veteran, who served in the war in Afghanistan. Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and Oxford University, attending the latter on a select Rhodes Scholarship. He plans to help decrease student debt and to increase the defense budget among other issues.

Tulsi Gabbard – Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician and Hawaii Army National Guard major serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district. Elected in 2012, she is the first Hindu member of Congress and the first Samoan–American voting member of Congress Gabard. supported campaign finance reform and the Financial Times describes it as one of her signature issues. She is opposed to the influence of Super PACs in politics and state.

Amy Klobuchar – Amy Jean Klobuchar is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota’s affiliate of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the Hennepin County Attorney. Klobuchar won 12.3 percent of votes at the Iowa Caucus. She and Elizabeth Warren were the two candidates to be endorsed by The New York Times.

Bernie Sanders – Vermont Senator, nearly won the Iowa caucuses with 26.1 percent and went on to take First Place in the New Hampshire Primary on Feb. 11.  He lost the democratic nomination to Hilary Clinton in 2016. Senator Sanders is known for his progressive ideals such as his support for Medicare for all, providing free tuition for all public universities and his views on climate change.  At 78 years old, Bernie has stressed that he has been fighting for social equality for the past 40 years, but some have been stressing that his ideas are too radical to unite the country to vote against President Trump.

Tom Steyer – Thomas Fahr Steyer graduated from Yale University and founded the Farallon Capital (a hedge fund firm headquartered in San Francisco, California). In 2012, Steyer stepped down from his position at Farallon in order to focus on advocating for alternative energy. In 1983, Steyer worked on Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign. He raised money for Bill Bradley in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Steyer desires to place limits in Congress, decriminalize illegal border crossings and expand the Supreme Court. He says his top priorities are breaking the influence of corporations and addressing climate change.

Elizabeth Warren – Elizabeth Ann Warren is an American politician and former academic, serving as the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts since 2013. She was formerly a Harvard law school professor specializing in bankruptcy law. She won 18 percent of the vote at the Iowa Caucus, making her third behind Sanders and Buttigieg. She stresses the need to rebuild the middle class, and to keep the economic and social prospects of all Americans equal. 

Our team interviewed a few students about their thoughts on the upcoming election.

“I support Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg for president because they are currently the top candidates, and I also think they have the best chance at winning.”  said junior Emily Ferrer. 

“I support President Trump over the democratic candidates because I like his political mindset and eagerness to control the border,” said sophomore Matthew Kneis.