U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive populist who mounted a fierce challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton in the 2016 White House campaign, said on Tuesday he will again seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
The Brooklyn native announced his candidacy in an email to supporters, pledging to build a vast grassroots movement to confront the special interests that he said dominate government and politics.
Sanders said he would push for many of the same issues that powered his 2016 bid and resonated with younger voters, including universal healthcare, raising the hourly minimum wage to $15, and free public college tuition.
“Our campaign is about creating a government and economy that works for the many, not just the few,” Sanders said, asking for 1 million people to sign up to kick off his bid.
In an interview with Vermont Public Radio, the Vermont senator promised a “very different campaign” in an effort to unseat Republican President Donald Trump.
Trump’s campaign weighed in on Sanders’ run in a statement.
“Bernie Sanders has already won the debate in the (Democratic) primary, because every candidate is embracing his brand of socialism,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said.
This time around, Sanders has been among the leaders in opinion polls of prospective 2020 candidates, but he faces other liberal progressives touting many of the same ideas he brought into the party mainstream.
The primaries and caucuses that determine the party’s nominee will begin in February 2020 in Iowa, and the Democratic winner is likely to face Trump in the general election in November.
