Bernie Sanders launches second US presidential bid
Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive populist who mounted a fierce challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton in the 2016 White House campaign, said yesterday he would again seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
Sanders, 77, announced his candidacy in a lengthy early morning email to supporters, pledging to build a vast grassroots movement to confront the special interests that he said dominate government and politics. “Our campaign is about creating a government and economy that works for the many, not just the few,” Sanders said in the email, asking for 1 million people to sign up to start the effort.
The senator from Vermont launched his insurgent 2016 candidacy against Clinton as a long shot, but ended up capturing 23 state nominating contests and pushing the party to the left, generating tension between its establishment and liberal wings that has not entirely abated.
This time around, Sanders has been among the leaders in opinion polls of prospective 2020 candidates, but he faces a field more heavily populated with other liberal progressives touting many of the same ideas he brought into the party mainstream. That could make it harder to generate the same level of fervent support as four years ago.
He also is likely to face questions about his age and relevance in a party that is increasingly advancing more diverse and fresh voices, including those of women and minorities, groups that Sanders struggled to win over in 2016.
The primaries and caucuses that determine the party’s nominee begin in February 2020 in Iowa, and the Democratic winner is likely to face President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the general election in November. Among those already in the Democratic race are fellow Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Sanders has been an unsparing critic of Trump, and in his email he called him “the most dangerous president in modern American history.” “We are running against a president who is a pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction,” Sanders said.
U.S.