Campaign

Virginia Dem senator shuts door on 2020 presidential run

by Lisa Hagen - 11/30/16 1:13 PM ET

Sen. Mark Warner on Wednesday ruled out running for president in 2020, saying he wants to continue his work in the upper chamber of Congress.

“I think that window is probably shut,” the Virginia Democrat told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

{mosads}Warner, who served as governor from 2002 to 2006, declined to run for president in 2008 and instead mounted a bid for Senate. He barely survived a reelection challenge in 2014, winning by less than 20,000 votes against Republican Ed Gillespie, who is running for governor of Virginia next year.

The senator says he wants to help bridge the gap between Democrats and the GOP in the wake of Republicans capturing the White House and maintaining control of both chambers of Congress.

“The value add I can bring is how do we get ourselves out of this firing squad between old ideas of the left and the right,” Warner said. “The default position of, ‘Well, we can’t do it,’ or ‘We have to wait to beat them in the next election cycle,’ that’s not why I have this job.”

Fresh off the losses of the 2016 elections, Democrats are seeking to rebuild the party and gear up for a tough Senate map in 2018.

But some high-profile Democrats, including Warner’s Virginia colleague in the Senate, Tim Kaine, are already starting to rule out possible runs in 2020. Earlier this month in an interview with The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Kaine, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee this cycle, said he wouldn’t mount a run for president or vice president.

Kaine is up for reelection to the Senate in 2018.

Tags Mark Warner Tim Kaine