Sanders, Bernie (1941-…), became a United States senator in 2007. Sanders, an independent, represents Vermont. Prior to becoming a senator, Sanders served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Bernard Sanders was born in the Brooklyn section of New York City on Sept. 8, 1941. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1964. After graduation, Sanders moved to Vermont and worked as a writer, a carpenter, and a youth counselor.
Sanders joined the Liberty Union Party in 1971 and ran several times for Vermont governor and the U.S. Senate. However, he never received more than 6 percent of the statewide vote. In 1977, he resigned from the party and worked as a writer and as the director of a historical society. In 1981, Sanders ran as an independent candidate for mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and won. He served four two-year terms. Sanders also taught political science at Harvard University in 1989 and at Hamilton College in 1990.
Sanders first won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990. He helped found the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of mostly Democratic House members, in 1991. Under Sanders’s leadership, the caucus promoted such issues as universal health care, environmental protection, energy independence, and multilateral (three or more nation) solutions to world conflicts.
In 2006, Sanders won election to the U.S. Senate. He filled the seat of independent Senator James M. Jeffords, who retired. Sanders was reelected in 2012. As a senator, Sanders often has focused on economic inequality—that is, the wide difference in income and wealth between the richest and poorest Americans. He also has worked on issues related to family farms, health care, military veterans, taxation, and trade. Though elected as an independent, Sanders generally has caucused (met to discuss leadership or policy votes) with the Democrats. In 2015, Sanders began a campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the 2016 election. He changed his party affiliation from independent to Democrat in November 2015. Sanders ran a strong campaign but finished the nominating contests trailing Hillary Clinton—a former first lady, senator, and secretary of state—in both delegates and popular votes. In July 2016, Sanders endorsed Clinton. In the November general election, Republican businessman Donald J. Trump defeated Clinton.
After Sanders’s loss to Clinton in the contest for the Democratic nomination, he changed his party affiliation back to independent. Sanders continued to caucus with Democrats, however, and accepted a position as the party’s outreach director following the 2016 general election. Sanders won reelection to the Senate in 2018.
In February 2019, Sanders announced that he would seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. Sanders enjoyed support from progressive Democrats during the 2020 nominating campaign. However, he struggled to build a following among more moderate party members. Sanders ended his campaign in April 2020 while trailing former vice president Joe Biden in the race for delegates.
Sanders has also written or contributed to a number of books. They include Outsider in the House (1997), with coauthor Huck Gutman, and It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism (2023), with coauthor John Nichols.
