Steve Bullock’s candidacy could be an interesting one

Today, Montana Governor Steve Bullock announced that he’s running for President. His announcement video highlighted some ways that I think he could actually be an interesting candidate, even though he’s entering the race after nearly 2 dozen other Democratic competitors.

First, a little background on Bullock. He’s the Governor of a red state, which is something that I think that it would behoove the Democrats to keep in mind as something to emphasize. It can’t hurt to try and spread your appeal to more than just the urban centers along the coasts. Bullock won two terms as Governor in a state that voted for President Trump by 20 points.

But there was one thing that he did in his announcement video that was particularly interesting to me. He mentioned his work on campaign finance reform. This is an issue that policy wonks and more progressive Democrats have really focused on. I think Bullock might be able to carve a niche for himself if he’s able to gain people’s attention on this part of his background. If Bullock is going to gain any sort of traction, he’ll need to have an issue that he can own. And this is one that I think he’d be well-positioned to do so on.

This isn’t to say that I think Bullock has a great chance of winning the nomination. He doesn’t. To be frank, nobody knows who the hell he is. As it stands, he’s another white guy in a sea of white guys running for this office. And he’s been in charge of one of the most sparsely populated states in the country.

But I think it would behoove Democratic voters to give him a chance. He hasn’t really had to sacrifice much at all in terms of progressive beliefs, and yet has still maintained the trust of a state that went pretty strongly red in 2016. I hope he at least gets some traction in the conversation and doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of the increasingly large primary field.