Ex-governor joins crowded field for 2020 US presidential race

Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has made a late entry into the Democratic presidential race in the United States – less than three months before voting begins.

Mr Patrick made history as the first black governor of Massachusetts and has close ties to former president Barack Obama and his network of political advisers.

He announced his bid in an online video, where he highlighted his poverty-stricken childhood with an appeal to voters feeling the brunt of economic inequality.

Mr Patrick said he grew up on Chicago’s South Side, was raised in a two-bedroom tenement house and went to “a big, broken, overcrowded public school”.

And he said he’s running for the “people who feel left out and left back”.

As the first in his family to go to college and law school, Mr Patrick said: “I’ve had a chance to live my American Dream.” But over the years, the “path to that dream” has closed off for others, he said, as government and economy have been “letting us down”.

He faces significant fundraising and organisational hurdles this late in the race.

His announcement comes Democrats worry about the strength of the party’s current field of contenders. Another Democrat – former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg – is also weighing a lastminute bid for the party’s nomination.

Mr Bloomberg has taken steps toward launching a presidential campaign, filing candidate papers in Alabama and Arkansas. Even 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton this week said in a BBC interview that she is “under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it”, adding that she has no such plans but still would “never, never, never say never”.

The moves reflect uncertainty about the direction of the Democratic contest with no commanding front-runner. Joe Biden entered the race as the presumptive favorite and maintains significant support from white moderates and black voters, whose backing is critical in a Democratic primary. But he’s facing spirited challenges from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, progressives whose calls for fundamental economic change have alarmed moderates and wealthy donors.

“Stop. We have enough candidates,” said Kathy Sullivan, a Democratic National Committee member from New Hampshire, which hosts the party’s first presidential primary.

Mr Patrick has close ties to Wall Street donors and has remained active in politics since his term as governor ended in 2015.

After Trump’s election, he warned Democrats that “the outcome was less about Donald Trump winning than Democrats letting him do so”.