What Are The 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Doing Now?

As candidates on both sides of the aisle prepare for a possible 2024 presidential bid, let's take a look at what the members of 2020's crowded Democratic candidate field are doing now. Members of 2020's pool of Democratic Presidential hopefuls are now working across the political spectrum as members of Biden's cabinet, continuing Congressional members, and political analysts.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris ended her presidential bid on Dec. 3, 2019. A former federal prosecutor from California, Harris' campaign centered on racial equality efforts, with her confronting Joe Biden in a debate on his past opposition to busing as a way to desegregate schools.

Harris was announced as President Joe Biden's running mate on Aug. 11, 2020. She is now the first woman, Black American and South Asian American to be elected Vice President. She has spent much of her tenure overseeing the Senate in a tie-breaking role as partisan tensions halt policy progression. Harris has attempted to make progress on issues such as voting rights and immigration which have arguably been stalled by COVID-19 and economic recovery efforts.

Pete Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg began his run as a humble mayor of South Bend, Ind. The Afghanistan veteran and Rhodes scholar positioned himself as a moderate, calling for generational change in American politics. According to a Dec. 15, 2019 poll, Buttigieg was in 4th place at 8% before dropping out of the race on March 1, 2020. He gained popularity as a moderate Democratic candidate whom some likened to a young Barack Obama.

Buttigieg, 40, is now the Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration. He recently gained media attention for his work investigating Southwest Airlines following the airline's mass holiday cancellations. He has worked to administer fleets of electric postal service vehicles, responding to supply-chain disruptions, and supporting the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which distributed $1.5 billion to the Transportation Department for highway, rail, and multimodal freight improvements across the country.

Julian Castro

Julian Castro was the only Latino candidate in the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidacy pool. He was a former mayor of San Antonio and the youngest member of Obama's cabinet. Castro's campaign focused on immigration and education reform. He was not in the top 10 polling candidates at the end of 2019 and ended his bid for president on Jan. 2, 2020.

Castro is now an NBC and MSNBC Political Analyst and Guest Anchor. As a former Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Castro has focused on America's housing crisis, Latino representation, and immigration. Joaquin Castro, Castro's brother, won his re-election campaign in Texas' 20th District, earning 68.4% of the votes.

Bernie Sanders

Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, ran on the Democratic ticket for president in 2020 following his failed 2016 primary bid against Hillary Clinton. He ran on a progressive platform, calling for universal free health care and free college tuition. Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the house. Sanders was polling in 2nd place at 22% according to a Dec. 15, 2019 poll.

The Senator that sparked a massive fanbase is now serving his third term in the U.S. Senate after being re-elected in 2018. Sanders has continuously been one of the most liberal members of Congress and has critiqued Democratic policy failures, economic inequality and corporate greed.

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren, a Senator from Massachusetts, campaigned on addressing economic inequality and corporate corruption. Warren was polling in third place behind Biden and Sanders at 15% in Dec. 2019 before dropping out of the race on March 5, 2020.

Warren won re-election for her U.S. Senate seat in 2018. She announced earlier this year that she will not seek another presidential bid in 2024, but will run again to keep her Senate seat. Since 2020, Warren has led efforts to wrangle in big tech and has criticized Elon Musk's role as Tesla and Twitter CEO.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and former mayor of New York City, ran for president on the basis of his leadership and problem-solving experience. Bloomberg owns the private financial, software, data, and media company– Bloomberg L.P. At the end of 2019, Bloomberg was polling at 7% in 5th place among Democratic presidential hopefuls. He ended his campaign on March 4, 2020.

Bloomberg currently has an estimated net worth of $76.8 billion. In recent years, he has made headlines by launching multi-million dollar philanthropic campaigns towards clean energy, gun violence prevention, and education initiatives. In June, Bloomberg was sworn in as the Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Board Chair. It was recently reported that the former presidential candidate is planning to buy Dow Jones or the Washington Post.

Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran and Hawaiian Congresswoman, campaigned as a separatist from the mainstream Democratic party. She was the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu elected to Congress in 2012. Her campaign focused on anti-interventionist foreign policy and repeatedly criticized Democrat's "open border" policies as well as progressive political rhetoric. Gabbard was polling at 2% behind nine other candidates at the end of 2019 before dropping out on March 19, 2020.

Gabbard retired from Congress in 2021 and announced in October that she is leaving the Democratic party, calling it an "elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness." She endorsed Biden in 2020 but has since criticized his leadership online and on news networks. She currently speaks as a political analyst on Fox News and hosts the podcast series the "Tulsi Gabbard Show."

Andrew Yang

Yang, whose campaign sparked the "Yang Gang" fanbase, was polling at 4% behind five other Democratic candidates at the end of 2019. Yang's campaign was hallmarked by his $ 1,000-a-month universal basic income policy. He ended his presidential bid on Feb. 11, 2020. Yang focused on climate change policy, immigration, and health care as well as universal basic income. Yang, 44, has also founded the nonprofit Venture for America and was a corporate attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell before entering the political arena.

Yang ran an unsuccessful campaign for New York City mayor in 2021. He left the Democratic party in October, registering as an independent. Additionally, his political rhetoric has recently focused on third-party viability and ranked-choice voting.