John Hickenlooper is giving up the ghost of his presidential run after five months on the campaign trail, according to a late night report from CBS 4 News, which everyone else in the media says they’ve also confirmed.

Hick will tell us himself during an 11 a.m. tapped video Thursday, which is when we’ll find out if he’s been named Miss Congeniality by official Washingtondom, and will soon wear the crown of Democratic nominee for Senate.

The timing of last night’s leak was perfect, falling on the heels of Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night monologue mocking Hick’s failure to launch.

“John Hickenlooper is considering dropping out of the race,” Fallon said in his opening. “Don’t do it, said absolutely no one.”
“Do you guys know about John Hickenlooper?” he asked the audience. “Yeah, that’s part of the problem.”
“He’s leaving the race. When he broke the news to all his supporters, they were like, ‘Cool dad, thanks for telling us.’”
“It makes sense right now. He’s polling at zero percent. I’m not saying his campaign is in bad shape, but even the guard who fell asleep watching Jeffrey Epstein is at 2%.”

Ouch.

You can watch the whole clip here, including Fallon’s farewell to Hick video.

Since Hick’s making this morning’s statement in a taped video, we predict it will not include an announcement for a Senate run.

Because that’s not the worst possible way to enter the race.

Instead, he’ll play coy and tease it out, holding out hope for a run until donors throw bales of money at him, basking all the while in the pleadings from the press corps to challenge U.S. Senator Cory Gardner.

Because Hick’s learned nothing from this whole mess.