Brown confirms he won’t enter 2020 race: ‘I think it’s a good field’

Greg Nash

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) confirmed once again on Sunday that he has no plans to enter to 2020 presidential primary race and dismissed concerns others have expressed about the candidates in the race.

Brown, who announced earlier this year he would not run, was pressed again Sunday by NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd after billionaire Michael Bloomberg moved closer to launching a presidential bid. 

“You’ve seen plenty of the speculation, you’ve gotten the phone calls, a lot of Democrats wringing their hands about this field that think you should be the one that had jumped this week, not Michael Bloomberg. What do you make of this feeling in the Democratic party right now about nervousness of this field,” Todd asked.

Brown dismissed the concerns, saying it’s “genetic” that democrats will wring their hands about presidential campaigns. 

“I mean we always do that, I think it’s a good field. I think we’re going to beat Trump,” Brown said. 

He said voters will contrast the Democratic candidate with Trump’s broken promises to workers in the industrial midwest, including Trump’s “betrayal of workers on minimum wage and overtime, and his court appointees, and his national labor relations board.”{mosads}

“All the ways he betrays workers in the Middle West and betrays our allies in the Middle East,” Brown added. “And I think that’s the contrast voters are going to make with whomever our nominee is, and we win in 2020 as a result.”

“So I don’t have this hand wringing  anguish that a number of my, a number of others might have.” 

Todd asked what Brown says to Democrats still calling on him to run. 

“I never have had the big desire to be president of the United States,” he said. “To get in this race, to run for a year, you’ve got to want to do it more than anything imaginable. That’s what separates the ambition of those who get to senate or governor and those who decide to run for president.” 

Updated at 2:15 p.m. 

Tags Chuck Todd Michael Bloomberg Sherrod Brown Sunday shows

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