California Billionaire Tom Steyer Will Not Run For President In 2020
(CNN) -- Billionaire Tom Steyer will not run for President in 2020, his spokeswoman tells CNN, ending months of speculation that the Democratic donor will escalate his efforts to defeat Trump by attempting to take him on at the ballot box.
Steyer, a 61-year-old hedge fund manager, will make the announcement in Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday.
Aleigha Cavalier, Steyer's spokeswoman, told CNN on Wednesday that the billionaire will instead focus on his efforts to take on Trump from the outside, namely through Need to Impeach, a group he founded after Trump's win in 2016 that looked to garner public support around impeaching Trump.
Steyer has spent millions on Democratic causes over the last decade and most recently became known for his impeachment work, which included a slew of TV ads featuring the billionaire himself. Steyer spent over $120 million on political causes in 2018.
Steyer has been publicly contemplating a 2020 run at the same time that he runs his impeachment organization and NextGen America, a group he founded in 2013 to fight climate change by pushing renewable energy.
Steyer told CNN last week that he would only run if he believed he offered something new to the field of candidates.
"I'm thinking about it in terms of what I can bring that isn't already available," he said. "Unless I believe that my background and my beliefs and my priorities are different from the other people who are running, there's really no point in being on of a very large group of contestants."
The-CNN-Wire
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