Bernie Sanders announces second run for presidency.
WASHINGTON — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose insurgent 2016 presidential campaign reshaped Democratic politics, announced Tuesday that he is running for president in 2020.
“Our campaign is not only about defeating Donald Trump,” the 77-year-old selfdescribed 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, 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 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’s far different from 2016, when he was Clinton’s lone progressive adversary.
Still, there is no question that 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. He opens his campaign with a nationwide organization and a proven small-dollar fundraising effort.
“We’re gonna win,” 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.”
Sanders described his new White House bid as a “continuation of what we did in 2016,” noting that policies he advocated for then are now embraced by the Democratic Party.
“You know what’s happened in over three years?” he said. “All of these ideas and many more are now part of the political mainstream.”
Sanders’ campaign raised $1 million in 3½ hours on Tuesday morning, according to a person familiar with the campaign, who wasn’t authorized to publicly disclose the early numbers and spoke on condition of anonymity. Sanders could be well positioned to compete in the nation’s first primary in neighboring New Hampshire, which he won by 22 points in 2016.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Sanders’ candidacy is how he’ll compete against someone like Elizabeth Warren, who shares many of his policy goals. Warren has already launched her campaign and has planned an aggressive swing through the early primary states.
Shortly after announcing her exploratory committee, Warren hired Brendan Summers, who managed Sanders’ 2016 Iowa campaign. Other staffers from Sanders’ first bid also have said they would consider working for other candidates in 2020.