USA TODAY International Edition
Sestak surprise: Dem race has to make room for one more
Former Rep. Joe Sestak made an unexpected leap Sunday into the crowded field of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to run against President Donald Trump in 2020.
“What Americans most want today is someone who is accountable to them, above self, above party, above any special interest,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “I want to be that President who serves the American people the way they deserve to be served.”
Sestak, 67, is a retired naval vice admiral who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2007 and again in 2009. He said he delayed his decision to enter the presidential race as his daughter battled a return of brain cancer, which she first fought off at age 4.
“I had worn the cloth of our nation for over 31 years in peace and war, but after Alex’s first high-grade brain tumor, I needed to answer to you, the American people, who provided the military health care coverage that saved our daughter’s life,” he said.
In 2010, he ran for the Senate after defeating incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter – a former Republican who switched parties – in the Democratic primary. He lost that race to former Republican Rep. Pat Toomey. In 2016, Sestak sought a rematch against Toomey but failed to win the Democratic primary.
Sestak, who graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1974 and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard, said in a campaign video released Sunday that “America’s retreat from the world today” is “dangerous and damaging to our American Dream.”
He said “building the liberal world order based upon the rules of individual and human rights, open and fair markets, fair and just governments” is “what really makes ‘America First.’ ”
Sestak is the 24th candidate in the Democratic primary. Twenty of them will participate in debates Wednesday and Thursday night in Miami.
Sestak will have to watch those debates from the sidelines because he did not make the polling and fundraising levels required to take the stage.