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Tulsi Gabbard Is Moving Toward An Unconventional Presidential Campaign. Her Fans See "Bernie 2.0."
The Hawaii Democrat, who has bucked her party in Congress, may make an announcement about her 2020 decision as soon as this week.
Alexis Levinson
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on December 17, 2018, at 3:30 p.m. ET
ulsi Gabbard, a Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii, is known — insofar as she is known — for bucking her party. She criticized President Barack Obama’s handling of ISIS. She was widely criticized for traveling to Syria to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused by the US government of using chemical weapons against his own people. She rebuked the way the Democratic National Committee handled the 2016 presidential primary, and then publicly resigned as vice chair to endorse Bernie Sanders.
Now, nearly three years later, she is poised to try to convince Democratic primary voters that they should turn the page not just on status quo politics, but on the Vermont senator whom she championed.
Gabbard has acknowledged that she is “seriously considering” a presidential bid. Her team is actively seeking to staff senior roles on a potential presidential campaign, according to a person briefed on the outreach, and has indicated that an announcement could come as soon as this week.
She’s in discussions with the Des Moines–based Asian and Latino Coalition about organizing an event with them sometime in the first two weeks of January. She did several events in New Hampshire earlier this month, on the heels of trips there before the 2018 election. She also made a trip to Nevada the week before the election to connect with “progressive” candidates and causes, and was set to hit early state bingo with a trip to South Carolina, but that trip was scotched due to plane trouble.
Even in a barely formed presidential field, Gabbard would enter the race as an underdog. She did not rate a mention in a Des Moines Register/CNN poll of the Democratic presidential field last week. House members have an inherently difficult time running for national office, as they are often little known outside their district. The last one to successfully do it was James Garfield — in 1880. In a field that could number more than two dozen candidates, Gabbard stands out as the only one to have met with President-elect Donald Trump while being considered for a cabinet post in his administration. And for all her Sanders campaign bona fides, she has a much more conservative political history, and she would hardly be the only one to claim the progressive mantle — with Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, and Sanders himself considering bids.
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexislevinson/tulsi-gabbard-2020-president-democrat-primary
19 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Ditto!
