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Tim Ryan, Ohio Congressman, Enters 2020 Democratic Presidential Race Tim Ryan, Ohio Congressman, Enters 2020 Democratic Presidential Race
(32 minutes later)
Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, a moderate Democrat from one of the nation’s most coveted swing states, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday, bringing the Democratic primary field to 17. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Democrat from one of the nation’s most coveted swing states, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday, bringing the Democratic primary field to 17.
“I’ve watched the American Dream slip through the fingers of many Americans,” Mr. Ryan wrote on his campaign website, which was unveiled as he appeared on “The View” on ABC. “It’s time for us to start building the America we deserve.” Mr. Ryan, who represents a district in northeastern Ohio that includes Youngstown and part of Akron, is perhaps best known for his criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and his accompanying argument that Democrats have stopped connecting with working-class voters, especially in the Midwest. He challenged Ms. Pelosi for the minority leader position in 2016 and, two years later, was again a leader of a push to elect someone else.
Mr. Ryan, who represents a district in northeastern Ohio that includes Youngstown and part of Akron, is perhaps best known for his criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and his accompanying argument that Democrats have stopped connecting with working-class voters, especially in the Midwest. He challenged Ms. Pelosi for the minority leader position in 2016. He began his presidential campaign with a TV appearance Thursday morning on “The View,” in which he emphasized jobs and the economy. “I’m a progressive who knows how to talk to working-class people,” he said. “At the end of the day, the progressive agenda is what’s best for working families.”
His path to the nomination is steep, and not just because the field is so crowded. The last — and only — sitting House member to be elected president was James Garfield in 1880. It was the sort of message — progressive populism to challenge right-wing, Trumpist populism — that some voters had expected to hear from one of Mr. Ryan’s fellow Ohioans, Senator Sherrod Brown, who flirted with the idea of a presidential campaign before deciding last month not to run.
But Mr. Ryan believes there is an opening in the race for a Midwesterner who wants to focus on winning back the voters who flipped to President Trump in 2016, turning states like Michigan and Wisconsin red for the first time in about three decades. It is the same role Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., is trying to play. [Who’s in? Who’s out? Keep up with the 2020 field with our candidate tracker.]
Of the 17 Democratic candidates, only three — Mr. Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and, now, Mr. Ryan — are from the Midwest. On “The View,” an ABC program, the hosts pressed Mr. Ryan on whether he was a true progressive or a moderate.
“I believe in the free enterprise system,” he responded. “I believe that we need to reform government. We can’t just go ask people for tax dollars to go dump into a broken health care system where we spend two and a half times as much money as every other industrialized country and get worse results; a broken food system that has got half the country with diabetes or pre-diabetes; a broken environmental system.”
Over his 16 years in the House, Mr. Ryan has shifted to the left on some of the country’s most contentious issues.
For much of his career, he opposed abortion, citing his Catholic faith. But in 2015, he wrote in an op-ed for The Akron Beacon Journal in which he said that after speaking with women about their reasons for choosing to have abortions, he had “come to believe that we must trust women and families — not politicians — to make the best decision for their lives.”
He made a similar reversal on gun policy after the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, breaking publicly from the National Rifle Association — which had previously given him A ratings — and announcing that he would take the roughly $20,000 he had received from its political action committee and donate it to organizations seeking stricter gun laws.
He is also a co-sponsor of Representative Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill. The Republican National Committee highlighted that support in its response to Mr. Ryan’s announcement, calling him one more addition “to the long list of liberal candidates demanding government-run health care.”
Mr. Ryan’s path to the nomination is steep, and not just because the field is so crowded. The last — and only — sitting House member to be elected president was James Garfield in 1880.
But Mr. Ryan believes there is an opening in the race for a Midwesterner who can focus on winning back the voters who flipped to President Trump in 2016, turning states like Michigan and Wisconsin red for the first time in about three decades.
Of the 17 Democratic candidates, only three — Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.; and Mr. Ryan — are from the Midwest.
On “The View,” Mr. Ryan said his daughter had called him one day, crying, to tell him her friend was going to have to move because a local General Motors plant had closed.
“My daughter called me and said, ‘You’ve got to do something,’” Mr. Ryan recalled. “And I said: ‘I’m going to do something. I’m going to run for president of the United States.’”