Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign
The 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders was an election campaign from the junior United States senator from Vermont. It began with Sanders's formal announcement on February 19, 2019. The announcement followed widespread speculation that he would run again after running unsuccessfully in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries.
Sanders consistently polled among the top three Democratic candidates nationally. Sanders raised $6 million in the first 24 hours of his announcement, beating out Kamala Harris's $1.6 million for the highest amount raised on day one. Sanders raised $10 million in the first week after launching his campaign. Within each of the four quarters of 2019, Sanders' campaign raised $18.2 million, $18 million, $25.3 million, and $34.5 million, respectively. In the first, third and fourth quarters, the campaign had the largest haul for any candidate in the Democratic field. In the second quarter, he was outraised by Elizabeth Warren. On September 19, 2019, Sanders' campaign announced that they had reached 1 million individual donors, becoming the fastest presidential campaign in history to do so. As of January 2020, Sanders had raised more money than any other Democratic candidate, and only self-funded billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg had more cash on hand.
The national co-chairs of the campaign were Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, U.S. representative Ro Khanna, Our Revolution president Nina Turner, and San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. The campaign manager was Faiz Shakir.
Sanders suspended his presidential campaign on April 8, 2020, following a string of losses to his chief rival Joe Biden and a dwindling path to the nomination. He endorsed Biden on April 13.
Background
Sanders' 2020 campaign was his second run for the Democratic nomination, following his campaign in the 2016 primaries. He entered the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries as a heavyweight candidate, as compared to his prior 2016 underdog campaign. Had Sanders won the presidency, he would have been the first Jewish president and the oldest president at the time of inauguration.Sanders joined the 2020 race with the advantages of a large online donor base and having his policy ideas accepted into the Democratic mainstream. In a crowded field of primary candidates, Sanders had the largest infrastructure in waiting but was likely to see his supporter base fragmented, as compared to his head-to-head campaign in 2016. While policies such as single-payer healthcare and tuition-free public colleges have entered mainstream Democratic thought since his 2016 campaign, some Democratic leaders doubted the breadth of his appeal.
On February 19, 2019, Sanders announced on Vermont Public Radio that he was running for the 2020 United States presidential election. On the same day, he announced his campaign in an email to his supporters and in an interview with John Dickerson on CBS This Morning.
Campaign
On March 15, 2019, Sanders' campaign announced that its workers had unionized with UFCW Local 400, making it the first-ever major presidential campaign with a unionized workforce. The Sanders campaign promised to offset its greenhouse gas emissions while traveling by contributing to renewable energy projects.Staff and leadership
On February 21, 2019, Sanders' campaign announced its national campaign co-chairs: Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, Rep. Ro Khanna, Our Revolution president Nina Turner, and San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz.The campaign manager was Faiz Shakir, the political director was Analilia Mejia, and the communications director was Carli Stevenson. Other staff and advisors included deputy political director Sarah Badawi and senior advisor for the campaign Chuck Rocha; deputy press secretary Belén Sisa; senior advisors Phillip Agnew, Pete D’Alessandro and Kurt Ehrenberg; and foreign policy advisor Matt Duss. Shakir's role as campaign manager may have made him the first Muslim campaign manager for a major party U.S. presidential campaign, and the first Pakistani-American to hold the position.
Fundraising
Fundraising totals are closely watched because they are an indicator of a candidate's support. Within three-and-a-half hours after his announcement, Sanders had raised over $1 million from small donations from all 50 states, quickly overtaking the amount rival candidate Kamala Harris raised in the first full day after her presidential announcement. Within 12 hours, Sanders had raised over $4 million from 150,000 donors, and in the first 24 hours following his announcement, Sanders raised $5.9 million from 225,000 individual donors, with the average donation being $27. Within a week of his announcement Sanders had raised $10 million from 359,914 donors; donors who did not donate to his 2016 campaign stood for 39% of the donations, and registered Republican donors numbered approximately 12,000. By April 1, Sanders had raised $18.2 million, leading the amounts raised by all other Democratic candidates. About 20 percent of donors were new supporters and the average donation was $20. On July 2, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir announced to reporters that the campaign had raised $18 million in the second quarter of 2019 in addition to having transferred an additional $6 million from other campaign accounts. Shakir added that 99% of the donations were $100 or less with an average contribution size of $18 and that the campaign received 2 million the day after the Miami Democratic debate. On July 31, Shakir announced that the Sanders campaign had raised 1.1 million from over 70,000 donations since the Detroit Democratic debate the previous night, which Shakir credited Sanders for commanding and using to leave "absolutely no doubt that he is the best candidate ready to take this fight to Donald Trump and finally bring the change we need to America." As with his 2016 campaign, donors have the option to donate exactly $27 to the campaign, the average amount donated to Bernie at one point in the 2016 campaign. On September 19, 2019, Sanders' campaign announced that they had reached 1 million individual donors, becoming the fastest presidential campaign in history to achieve that milestone.On October 1, 2019, Sanders' campaign announced that it raised $25.3 million in the third quarter. On January 1, 2020, the Sanders campaign announced that they had raised $34.5 million during the final quarter of 2019, the highest amount in a single quarter of any candidate. On February 6, 2020, the Sanders campaign announced it raised $25 million in January 2020, more than any other candidate raised during any entire quarter of 2019.
Public speaking events
Sanders held a kickoff rally at New York City's Brooklyn College on March 2, 2019, with an estimated crowd of around 13,000 in attendance. In addition to his well-known positions on income equality and societal reform, Sanders also spoke about his personal life, which was something that he had hesitated to do in his first presidential campaign. Sanders spoke about the influence that his working-class upbringing in Brooklyn and the experiences of his father, a Jewish immigrant who had fled from anti-Semitism and poverty in Poland, had on his life. Sanders said "I know where I came from, and that is something I will never forget. Unlike Donald Trump, who shut down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay the bills, I know what it's like to be in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck."On March 3, Sanders spoke in Selma, Alabama, at a commemoration event held to remember the civil rights march known as Bloody Sunday. Later that day, Sanders held his second rally in Chicago, Illinois. As at his first event, he spoke about income and social equality, but in Chicago, Sanders spoke more extensively against racial disparities. Sanders discussed his personal involvement in the civil rights movement, including his leading role in the 1962 University of Chicago sit-ins and his participation in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
On April 13, Sanders delivered an address to service trade union members in Coopersville, Michigan where he pledged to do everything he could to prevent President Trump's reelection and declared that a Sanders administration would "use the power of the federal government to say to large, profitable corporations, 'treat your workers with respect.'"
On May 5, Sanders gave a speech at the Mitchell County Fairgrounds in Osage, Iowa, calling for radical changes to the agricultural economy of the United States including different policy approaches for farm subsidies, supply management programs and rural investments and cited the need for new anti-trust measures to combat the "growing monopolization of agriculture."
On June 12, Sanders gave a speech at George Washington University defining and defending his vision of democratic socialism, saying it was an imperative in order to both defeat Trump in the upcoming election and bring systemic change to the United States.
On June 28, Sanders addressed the National Newspaper Publisher's Association's convention at the Westin Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he spoke about his campaign's policies and opined that there was "no excuse for white families to own 10 times more wealth than black families."
On July 17, Sanders gave another speech at George Washington University, defending his Medicare for All proposal against critique of it as unrealistic and overly disruptive and its benefits toward seniors through providing them with access to dental, vision and other benefits that were presently not covered by Medicare.
On July 23, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren spoke at a rally of organized airline industry workers at Reagan National Airport, Sanders saying that they had a simple request of wanting Sky Chefs, Gate Gourmet, and American Airlines to pay "workers living wages and provide decent health care."
On July 24, Sanders spoke at the annual NAACP convention in Detroit, Michigan, where he and Amy Klobuchar stated their support for a plan put forth by South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn to put significant investments in impoverished communities when asked if they supported reparations for slavery.
On August 7, Sanders held a rally at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, where he advocated for his Senate colleagues to pass legislation raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour that had been passed in the House the previous month as well as the implementation of a ban on the sale and distribution of assault-style rifles.
On August 8, Sanders delivered a speech at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Miami, Florida, saying that his proposal to make college and health care free while taxing the wealthy would "disproportionately" assist black communities and described how his plan to forgive student loan debt would lift a burden that kept young people struggling.