HUNTSVILLE — Thursday at an event promoting his new book “Bending Toward Justice,” Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) fielded a question following his remarks about the potential 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary field.
Jones, who is also up for election in 2020, said he expected his party to move back to the center.
He said that despite some in the House that “get a lot of attention,” the “radical middle” grew in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was a trend he said he expected to continue.
“I think the field of Democrats is still forming,” Jones said to a crowd assembled at the Huntsville Books-A-Million. “I think there are some really great folks in there. My belief, and I may be wrong about this, but my belief is that the needle will start moving back to the center after a lot of hoopla after the 2018 election. People forget this, but if you really examine what happened in 2018, the middle grew in the House. I mean, there’s a lot of folks that get a lot of attention. But, it was the Connor Lambs of the world and some others that really grew the middle, what I call the ‘radical middle,’ grew in the House. Now we shrunk in the Senate when some of my friends lost. So, I believe that as this process goes on, you’re going to see that needle move back. Where that will end up for a Democratic nominee, I have no idea.”
The Jefferson County Democrat hinted that he would support former Vice President Joe Biden, should Biden announce he will run for the 2020 Democratic Party nod.
“It may depend on how things go,” he replied. “Everybody knows that Joe Biden and I have been friends for 40 years. And so, I have talked about Joe a lot. And I have always wanted him to be president – not just to run for president, but to be president. Outside of Joe, we’ll see how that goes. I got my race to deal with. But whatever we do, I’ll end up supporting the nominee. We’re not going to run away from that. And I hope to have some of my colleagues come down here at some point. We’ll see how that goes.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
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