Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she had no plans to become the latest Democrat to throw her hat into an already crowded ring vying for the presidency but said “many, many, many people” had urged her to enter the race before 2020 filing deadlines.
“I, as I say, never, never, never say never,” Clinton, who won the popular vote in the 2016 race, but ultimately lost to President Donald Trump, told BBC Radio 5 Live. “I will certainly tell you I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it. But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”
Clinton was speaking to the BBC as part of a press tour alongside her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to promote their new project, “The Book of Gutsy Women.”
A slew of establishment Democrats have been mulling their own bids in recent days, just before some states’ filing deadlines for candidates to get their names on the books for the primaries. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to file paperwork in Arkansas this week in anticipation of a potential bid, although he has reportedly not made a final decision about the 2020 race. Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is also considering a last-minute candidacy.
But it’s unclear if Americans even want more Democratic choices. The party has spent months winnowing down a field that at one point topped 20 candidates, and recent polls show that many Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters already felt the party had several candidates who could defeat Trump.
Clinton has stated multiple times that her presidential aspirations are over for now, although she has said she often imagines what the White House would’ve been like were she elected in 2016.
“Look, I think all the time about what kind of president I would’ve been and what I would’ve done differently and what I think it would’ve meant to our country and the world. So, of course, I think about it, I think about it all the time,” Clinton said on Tuesday. “Whoever wins next time is going to have a big task trying to fix everything that’s been broken.”