For Congressman John Delaney, the 2020 campaign is already underway. The money is there. So is the commitment. And people in are starting to pay attention.

The little-known Maryland congressman thinks that’s part of what will transform a presidential run that pretty much no one takes seriously into the next Jimmy Carter-style, out-of-nowhere explosion onto the presidential debate stage. Delaney, who made his fortune founding two commercial lending companies, has already spent $1 million out of his own pocket, using it for TV ads in Des Moines and a campaign office in Iowa. Since last summer, he’s taken 11 trips to the caucus state, plus eight to New Hampshire. He’s even written a new campaign book.

What does he have to show for it? While he’s been all but ignored in the national media, Delaney has an internal poll from Iowa that ranks him fifth in terms of name ID among potential Democratic candidates. Fifty-two percent of those likely 2020 Democratic caucus-goers polled know who John Delaney is, which puts him behind only Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker—and ahead of buzzed-about figures like Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Terry McAuliffe.

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