Failed Dem House Candidate Ojeda to Run for President

Democrat Richard Ojeda, a West Virginia state senator who unsuccessfully ran for Congress this year, has announced his intention to run for president in 2020, The Intercept reports.

Ojeda is a former Army major who lost the race for the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which President Donald Trump won by 49 points in 2016, by 12 points. He was a leading figure in the West Virginia teachers’ strikes, having given several speeches on the floor of the statehouse supporting teachers in their call for a raise. 

Although he is a Democrat, Ojeda said that he voted for Trump in 2016, having become unwilling to back his party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, after she beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary.

“I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I’ll stay a Democrat, but that’s because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be,” he said in an interview with the Intercept released Sunday. “The reason why the Democratic Party fell from grace is because they become nothing more than elitist, that was it. Goldman Sachs, that’s who they were. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party that fights for the working class and that’s exactly what I do. I will stand with unions wholeheartedly and that’s the problem — the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.”

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