Klobuchar announces 2020 run for presidential

Senator Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, has joined the crowded field of Democratic candidates for 2020 that includes a historic number of women seeking the presidency.

Klobuchar, 58, now in her third six-year term as a senator for Minnesota is often characterized as “Minnesota nice” amid the rough-and-tumble of politics and is looking to be a foil to Donald Trump’s brash personality and often vitriolic rhetoric.

“I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota, to announce my candidacy for president of the United States,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar becomes the fifth U.S. senator to announce her candidacy and the fourth woman in the chamber.

She joined a jam-packed field that includes several of her Senate colleagues, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, and Cory Booker of New Jersey, as well as the former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

Klobuchar is the sixth prominent woman to wade into the primary contest, which features a record number of women vying for a major-party nomination. She launched her candidacy at an outdoor event in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon.

Elected to the Senate in 2006, Klobuchar had previously been the chief prosecutor of Minnesota’s most populous county. Democrats believe she would be uniquely positioned to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, although it remains unclear if a centrist figure could survive a primary that will be determined by an animated progressive base.

Klobuchar, in a departure from some of the other senators running for the Democratic party’s nomination, has not endorsed Medicare-for-All, the single-payer healthcare proposal championed by Bernie Sanders. She supports legislation around college affordability but has not called for debt-free college tuition.

A large crowd assembled in Minnesota on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River, despite heavy snowfall and 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 Celsius) temperatures.