Bernie Sanders, 77, announces new presidential bid as Democrat battle begins to take on Trump
VERMONT SENATOR Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 presidential campaign reshaped Democratic politics, has announced he is running for president in 2020.
“Our campaign is not only about defeating Donald Trump,” the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist said in an email to supporters.
“Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.”
An enthusiastic progressive who embraces proposals ranging from Medicare for All to free college tuition, Mr Sanders stunned the Democratic establishment in 2016 with his spirited challenge to Hillary Clinton.
While she ultimately became the party’s nominee, his campaign helped lay the groundwork for the leftward lurch that has dominated Democratic politics in the Trump era.
The question now for Mr Sanders is whether he can stand out in a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates who also embrace many of his policy ideas and are newer to the national political stage. That is far different from 2016, when he was Mrs Clinton’s lone progressive adversary.
But there is no question that Mr Sanders will be a formidable contender for the Democratic nomination.
He won more than 13 million votes in 2016 and dozens of primaries and caucuses, and opens his campaign with a nationwide organisation and a proven smalldollar fundraising effort.
“We’re gonna win,” Mr Sanders told CBS. He said he was going to launch “what I think is unprecedented in modern American history” – a grassroots movement “to lay the groundwork for transforming the economic and political life of this country”.
And he could be well positioned to compete in the nation’s first primary in neighbouring New Hampshire, which he won by 22 points in 2016.
But he will not have the state to himself. California senator Kamala Harris, another Democratic presidential contender, was in New Hampshire on Monday. Senator Elizabeth Warren, of nearby Massachusetts, will be in New Hampshire on Friday.