All Elections

Sandusky, Ohio, is a small city on the shores of Lake Erie. It's best known among Midwesterners as the home of Cedar Point, an amusement park famed for its abundance of roller coasters.

But last week city leaders took steps that could make Sandusky known as a leader of democracy, too: They declared Election Day a paid holiday – by swapping out Columbus Day.

NEW YORK CITY — Beto O'Rourke said Tuesday he will decide whether to run for president by the end of the month.

He made the comment during an interview with media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who pressed him on his long-awaited decision — and whether he's given himself a deadline.

Updated at 9:10 a.m. ET

California Sen. Kamala Harris is running for president in 2020. The first-term Democratic senator made the announcement on ABC's Good Morning America Monday morning.

"I love my country, and this is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to fight for the best of who we are," Harris said.

Julián Castro is the first Democrat to officially launch a bid for the 2020 presidential nomination. While others are expected to quickly follow, he’s got a few days’ head start to make his mark on the field.

So, what are Castro’s top campaign issues? Let’s start at the top.

Presidential candidates always have a couple of big issues to talk about during their hundreds of campaign stops, but there’s usually one issue that becomes a signature goal.

Updated 12:54 p.m. ET

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro formally launched his bid for president on Saturday, after weeks of hinting he was ready to join the growing 2020 Democratic primary field.

Castro said, "I've always believed with big dreams and hard work anything is possible in this nation."

If a great book is a sumptuous meal, the campaign book is a bottle of Soylent.

A novel by Nabokov, a play by Shakespeare, even a pulpy airport crime novel — these satisfy the basic urge to read a story with beginning, middle and end; to watch characters interact and to understand their complex motivations. These stories are there for the joy of consumption.

Happy New Year, it's already 2020. Or might as well be.

This is how elections work in this country — the presidential campaign cycle begins the year before the presidential election, and when it's a potentially large field, it pushes further and further back.

And that is what's happening. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive senator from Massachusetts, got a lot of attention for her New Year's Eve video announcement that she had launched an exploratory bid for president.

Updated at 11:46 a.m. ET

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren essentially kicked off her 2020 presidential campaign on Monday, announcing an exploratory committee — a formal step toward seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 — along with outlining a pitch to voters.

Julián Castro is taking another step toward a 2020 presidential campaign.

The former U.S. housing secretary and San Antonio mayor announced Wednesday that he has formed an exploratory committee to consider a bid and will make an announcement Jan. 12 in Texas. The committee is called Julián for the Future.

Updated 4 p.m.

Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro announced Wednesday he has formed an exploratory committee in preparation for a presidential run in the 2020 election.

Election after election, pundits predict that Latinos will be a powerful voting bloc. And Latino voters consistently underperform those expectations by failing to turn out at the polls in big numbers.

But this year's midterm results in Nevada, Arizona and other states suggest that Latino turnout is up dramatically — a development that could reshape the electoral landscape for 2020 and beyond.

Despite frenetically campaigning, rallying and tweeting support for Republican candidates in the lead-up to the midterms, President Trump didn't take any responsibility for the GOP's losses in those elections in an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace that aired Sunday.

"I have people that won't vote unless I'm on the ballot, OK?" Trump said, later noting, "My name wasn't on the ballot."

The holiday dinner conversations are going to be intense in several high-profile Democratic households in the coming weeks, as potential candidates near decisions on whether to run for president in 2020.

Even as their staffs and political advisers have already begun scouting out office space, interviewing potential aides, and plotting out strategy for the 2020 presidential election, most haven't completely made up their minds about entering what's expected to be one of the most crowded primary contests in history.