One White Male Democrat Enters the Presidential Race, One White Male Democrat Leaves

California Rep. Eric Swalwell is exiting the 2020 Presidial campaign today, opting instead to run for reelection in the House of Representatives. He will make the announcement in an afternoon press conference. Swalwell, who basically ran on gun reform, made a minor splash in the first Democratic debate by calling out Joe Biden and Mayor Pete. However, he was unable to translate that into any additional support. Nevertheless, he did essentially accomplish what he probably set out to do when he entered a race he could not win: Increase his name recognition and potentially line himself up for a cabinet position (if he wanted to run point on gun reform in a Democratic Administration, I would be fine with that).

This is the moment Eric Swalwell became president pic.twitter.com/k6bb3XUedb

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 8, 2019

Meanwhile. Tom Steyer — a strange man with a ton of money who has spent a lot of it running a television ad campaign to get Donald Trump impeached — is expected to enter the race tomorrow, reversing course after earlier stating that he would not run. He had previously believed that his money would be better-served funding other Democrats, but billionaires are gonna be billionaires. Eventually, the ego always takes over. He’s running on the campaign of, “Look! I may remind you a little of Joe Biden, but I’m rich!” I’d tell you more about the hedge-fund manager, but I don’t expect that he will fare any better than Swalwell, even with all the money in the world. We may mention his name again when he drops out.

Dear Tom Steyer,
We need your money and that's it. No really, that's it.
Sincerely.
Everyone fighting Trump

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) July 8, 2019

In other related news, Elizabeth Warren announced that she raised $19 million in the last quarter, which is not as quite much as Biden ($21 million) and Mayor Pete ( $24 million, for some reason), but Warren did it without meeting with big donors or holding big fundraising events. She did outraise Bernie. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, raised $12 million in the last quarter, and I have to believe that a good deal of that came since the debates.