Gov. John Hickenlooper says he’ll run for president, then quickly backtracks

Colorado's Governor John Hickenlooper was briefly running for President Wednesday morning.

At a café in New Hampshire, an employee asked him, "Are you running for president?" "I am governor of Colorado, I'm going to run for president," Hickenlooper, a Democrat, responded.

In September, Hickenlooper formed a leadership PAC, another step that seemingly signaled a presidential run without formally running for president. The leadership PAC "Giddy Up" has already raised $322,000, as of Oct. 17, according to federal campaign finance records. 

Money contributed to a "testing the waters" fund can pay for polling and travel to determine if they are a viable candidate. These types of campaign funds do not have to be registered with the Federal Election Commission, but if the person does run for president, those contributions would have to be made public. In 2015, Republican Jeb Bush told reporters, "I'm running for President in 2016" before he had officially filed to run for President. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed complaints with the FEC against Bush and three other candidates over concerns they were skirting campaign finance laws on how much money they can raise and other restrictions that would apply based on the person's candidate status.

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