WASHINGTON — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive iconoclast who emerged from the ideological fringe four years ago to build a movement that reshap
WASHINGTON — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive iconoclast who emerged from the ideological fringe four years ago to build a movement that reshaped the Democratic Party, entered the race for the 2020 presidential nomination Tuesday.
Sanders announced his decision in an interview on Vermont Public Radio and in an email to supporters.
“We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it’s time to move that revolution forward,” Sanders said in the radio interview.
He described President Donald Trump as a “pathological liar,” adding, “I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants.”
In announcing his bid, Sanders plunged into a very different race than the one he nearly upended in 2016, when he was the only progressive in a tiny field dominated by Hillary Clinton.
This time around, several other candidates will vie to represent the party’s left, and many progressives, including some former prominent supporters of his, are skeptical that Sanders is best suited to carry their mantle.
But his sustained popularity in early voting states, massive network of small donors and powerhouse digital operation, including a social media network far larger than any Democrat, give Sanders big advantages as the race gets underway.
“He’s got a very strong, loyal following,” said Joe Trippi, who has advised campaigns for several major Democrats. “It makes him somebody the rest of the field has to take very seriously, and who has a better shot than many of them at emerging as one of the three or four who actually competes long-term for the nomination.”
The transformative campaign the 77-year-old ran in the last presidential cycle drew masses of disaffected voters, including many millennials, to politics. The senator’s plans for expanding government, especially in guaranteeing health coverage, and his excoriations of the wealth of the richest Americans are now embedded in the Democratic Party’s platform.
As much as he changed the party’s positions, Sanders’ bigger impact may have been in proving the viability of a new model for how to sustain a campaign. He unleashed a small-donor revolution that enabled him to raise unprecedented amounts without taking a dime from corporate political action committees or getting trapped into the relentless cycle of big-dollar fundraisers.
