The Democrat who has sparked the race to succeed Donald Trump
▶ John Delaney, the first candidate to declare, is an electrician’s son with a backstory that could trouble the incumbent. David Milward reports from New Hampshire, where the battle will begin
The battle to challenge President Donald Trump in the United States is focused on the midterm elections, where Democrats hope to regain control of the House of Representatives and Senate.
After that attention will turn to the Democratic presidential nomination process in 2020, where the party will select its challenger to Mr Trump.
One candidate has formally entered the race so far: John Delaney, a Maryland congressman who believes he could be the man to beat Mr Trump.
Conventional wisdom would suggest he has little chance of winning the Democrat nomination, but conventional wisdom went out the window in 2016. At the start of the campaign, many thought the election would be contested by Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton nearly lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, who stood as a socialist, while Mr Trump, whose candidacy was regarded as a publicity stunt, swept away seasoned politicians.
The Trump presidency has proved as divisive as many feared. There is little doubt that Democrat voters who sat on their hands rather than back Mrs Clinton will turn out in force next time.
Mr Delaney is hoping that by entering the contest early, he will steal a march on his Democratic rivals.
Should he, against the odds, win the nomination, Mr Delaney is betting that by 2020 voters will have tired of the constant confrontation and will be looking for a measure of calm in the White House.
His strength is a persuasive backstory. The son of an electrician, his college education was funded by a trade union scholarship and he went on to found two successful businesses.
He was the youngest executive on the New York Stock Exchange and has made enough money to fund the early stages of the campaign from his own pocket.
Mr Delaney, 55, is a moderate who believes that only a president with bipartisan support will be able to get things done.
Barack Obama’s presidency was constantly thwarted by a Republican-controlled Congress. Washington gridlock prevented him closing Guantanamo Bay and appointing judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Mr Trump has found that having his own party in control of Congress is no guarantee of legislative success – as his attempts to repeal Obamacare demonstrated.
The big question is whether Mr Delaney’s positions will create problems with Democrat activists, who show every sign of having moved to the left since the previous presidential election.
But Mr Delaney disagrees. “All the things I am trying to do are consistent with Democratic values. What I am trying to do is build a coalition of people who see themselves as progressive.”
Speaking in New Hampshire at the weekend, he set out his policies in detail, from universal health cover – which Americans could top up with private health insurance – to a vast investment in education.
His policies would probably be shared by any Democratic candidate, although the left would probably go farther on health care with the taxpayer picking up a larger proportion of the cost.
Mr Delaney’s tactics are simple. He has launched a pre-emptive strike for the nomination, hoping that he can build enough momentum in the early stages of the race to become a major player.
The best analogy for the race for a party’s nomination is a horse race like the Grand National, where a huge field often gets whittled down very swiftly.
He is hoping to negotiate the first few fences – in this case, the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus, while more celebrated rivals falter.
A poor showing in the early races often proves fatal, in 1968 Lyndon Johnson pulled out of the running after faring badly in the first couple of contests. Conversely, Mr Trump’s success in New Hampshire enabled him to set a pace that left his rivals trailing in his wake.
This is why Mr Delaney declared his candidacy in September last year, a matter of months into the Trump presidency.
He began by turning up at the homes of Democrat activists in New Hampshire, which will hold the “first-in-the-nation primary” in 2020. Over this past weekend, he made his 11th visit to the Granite State.
Mr Delaney has also been to Iowa 15 times and a recent poll showed that his name was recognised by 79 per cent of voters there.
He has already bought air time in Iowa and took out a slot during the 2018 Super Bowl, the biggest event in the American sporting calendar that is watched by about a third of the US population.
It would be easy to write off Mr Delaney’s chances, but he is using a template that worked for Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.
Then an obscure governor and peanut farmer from Georgia, Mr Carter started his campaign by introducing himself to New Hampshire voters one by one and ended up in the White House. The lessons have not been lost on Mr Delaney. “You have to say what you are going to do and how are you are going to get things done,” he said.
As far as the bookies are concerned, Mr Delaney is a rank outsider. The favourite for the nomination – at least at the moment – appears to be the junior senator for California, Kamala Harris, 53.
One online bookmaker rates her chances as 9/2, which is impressive considering she entered the Senate in 2016.
She has made waves during the Senate hearings to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and appears to tick a lot of the progressive boxes at a time when the insurgent wing of the party seems to be gaining in influence.
While many observers still think that 2020 could be the last hurrah for either Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden – both high-profile former Democrat contenders – there is a growing belief that the party has to present a new face to challenge Mr Trump.
In common with a raft of other fancied runners, Ms Harris is “refusing to rule out” seeking the nomination.
One or two – such as Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, who served as Housing and Urban Development Secretary under Mr Obama – have even gone so far as to admit they are testing public opinion as they venture up to New Hampshire.
Some more esoteric names are also being floated, including Michael Avenatti, the abrasive lawyer who built a public profile by acting on behalf of the adult actress Stormy Daniels, who says she once had an affair with Mr Trump.
The picture will become a lot clearer after the midterms when the trickle of White House aspirants into New Hampshire and Iowa becomes a steady flow.
There could be at least a dozen Democrats in the early stages of the race, possibly more. In 2016, there were 17 Republicans at the start of the primary season.
Big names will have the advantage of celebrity and recognition, but John Delaney already has boots on the ground.
He may be a long shot, but so was Donald Trump.
All the things I am trying to do are consistent with Democratic values. What I am trying to do is build a coalition JOHN DELANEY Democratic presidential candidate