Politico: “The usual early trickle of potential presidential candidates into Iowa and New Hampshire is already a full-on flood ahead of Trump’s reelection bid. And in the place of the traditional assortment of senators and governors is an ever-expanding hodgepodge of long shots — from mayors to House members to state-level bureaucrats — each absolutely convinced they hold the key to kicking the president to the curb come 2020.”

“Eyeing a historically unpopular commander in chief, a national party devoid of an obvious front-runner, and increasingly accessible online tools providing a semi-reliable source of funding, Democrats find that the barriers to entering the presidential conversation are lower than ever. And each new entry begets others eager to be in the mix or at least raise their profile — however slim their chances of winning the nomination might be.”

“It used to be that Bernie Sanders was an ideological lone ranger in the Senate. Now, a whole host of potential presidential hopefuls are racing to represent the liberal grass roots on their issues of the day — and pulling the Democratic Party’s center of gravity further to the left,” Politico reports.

“The trend was apparent throughout the fall among the half-dozen Democratic senators drawing the loudest buzz for 2020 — aside from Sanders (I-VT), the group includes Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).”

“First they flocked to Sanders’ single-payer health care proposal. And then, almost in unison, they adopted two other stands popular among the Democratic base: Refusing to vote for any budget plan that didn’t include help for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, and calling for Donald Trump’s resignation over sexual harassment claims leveled against him last year by multiple women.”

“If we can’t figure out as a party how to win in 2018, we’re going to be in tough shape for 2020. I think it’s a huge political mistake for Democrats to even be talking about 2020 at this point.”

— Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), quoted by the Associated Press.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds just 36% of Americans say that they will definitely or probably vote for Donald Trump if he runs for reelection in 2020, while half indicate that they’ll definitely or probably support his Democratic general election challenger.

First Read: “One of the common refrains after their defeat in 2016 has been: What’s the Democrats’ economic message? Well, this bill gives it to them on a silver platter.”

“Democrats, in 2018 and 2020, will likely campaign on putting the middle class before the wealthy and corporations (under this bill, the corporate tax cuts are permanent, while the ones for individuals are temporary). They will blame health care premium increases on the repeal of the individual mandate. And above all, they will say that Donald Trump doesn’t deserve a tax break, which he gets under the legislation.”

And it takes away the GOP’s credibility on the federal debt: “Well, this tax legislation has a price tag of about $1.5 trillion, and it isn’t fully paid for (even when you factor in assumed economic growth under the most favorable of analyses).”

“A Democratic Party working group will meet in Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow to finalize a formal list of recommended reforms for the party,” ABC News reports.

“Sources close to the commission who have seen working drafts of its current report tell ABC News the panel plans to recommend dramatic cuts to the individual voting power of superdelegates and new rules around caucuses and primaries to improve access for voters and recordkeeping.”

Nate Silver: “Eliminating most unbound superdelegates + highly proportional delegate allocation + potentially huge Democratic field = high probability of a brokered convention.”