Representative Seth Moulton has jumped into the 2020 presidential campaign, becoming the latest Democrat to join the race to unseat President Trump.
The congressman from Massachusetts’ Sixth District announced his candidacy in a video on his website.
“I’m running because we have to defeat Donald Trump,” Moulton said. “And I want us to beat Donald Trump because I love this country.”
Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America Monday morning, Moulton tried to separate himself from a field currently led by Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-identified Democratic Socialist.
“I’m not a socialist. I’m a Democrat. And I want to make that clear,” Moulton said on the nationally broadcast show.
Moulton, 40, has been flirting with a presidential run for months. After visiting Iowa, the first state to vote in the 2020 presidential primary season, in September of 2017, the three-term Congressman has taken a renewed interest in persuing the presidency recently.
During the past month, he has visited all four early primary states, hired staff, and has secured office space ahead of a run for president.
He becomes the 19th major Democrat to officially run for president, with former vice president Joe Biden expected to join the race later in the week. Others running from the Bay State include Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and former governor Bill Weld, the only Republican to challenge President Donald Trump.
Moulton, who has three Harvard degrees and four tours of Iraq as a Marine under his belt, is hoping to carve a run focused both on a new generation of leadership and one focused primarily on foreign policy, something that has not been getting as much attention in the Democratic contest so far.
His campaign will be headquartered in Salem, where Moulton currently lives with his wife and infant daughter. His campaign manager will be Jim Matheson, who currently serves as the interim director of Moulton’s PAC.
He will remain in New York City on Monday for media interviews before hitting the campaign trail in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and California for the rest of the week.
Among Moulton’s first tasks: simply making the debate stage in June. The Democratic National Committee has set clear rules that for the top 20 candidates to qualify for one of two nights of debates in June and July. They will need to either register 1 percent in three different polls or have 65,000 different contributors to their campaign.
So far, Moulton is not even included in most early state and national polls, and he has just a few weeks to get 65,000 contributors.
Nationally, Moulton is more known for his unsuccessful challenge to Nancy Pelosi’s pursuit of the House Speaker role following the 2018 midterm elections. Moulton became the most vocal of a small group saying the party needed to pick someone else, but he failed to even find a candidate to challenge her.
In December, when he held a town hall meeting in his North Shore district, Moulton faced a crowd angry that he would dare to challenge Pelosi, the first woman to ever become US House speaker.
But as he runs for president it appears that he might have a challenge for his seat should things not work out. Jamie Zahlaway Belsito, of Topsfield, has filed paperwork to run for the seat — either to challenge Moulton or run for the open seat should he not seek reelection.
Peter Bailey-Wells can be reached at peter.bailey-wells@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @pbaileywells.
