Why Did Four Top Democrats Just Say No to 2020?

Some of those arguments could have posed challenges for Mrs. Clinton, too, who spent decades cultivating a network of high-dollar donors and close relationships with Wall Street to fund her campaigns.Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures and governorships during President Barack Obama’s two terms in the Oval Office, and those defeats found increased scrutiny once Mr. Trump ascended into the presidency and the Democrats held diminished political power.In the three years since, grass-roots organizations and Democratic Party leaders have pledged to take recruitment and support for nonpresidential races more seriously, leading some candidates who had considered a run for president to look further down the ticket. Mr. Steyer decided he would instead put his money behind efforts to impeach Mr. Trump.Both Mr. Steyer and Mr. Bloomberg said that, unlike Mr. Schultz, they would not consider a third-party run, which could risk helping Mr. Trump win re-election by siphoning votes from the Democratic candidate.Another thing the four non-candidates have in common: They all represent the back end of a rapidly changing Democratic Party.After their defeat in the 2016 presidential election, a more liberal, more uncompromising wing of the party begin to emerge, desperate to throw off the institutional connections to more centrist figures like the Clintons and Mr. Obama.