Bernie Sanders for President | |
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Campaign | U.S. presidential election, 2016 |
Candidate |
Bernie Sanders
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Affiliation |
Democratic Party (previously served as an Independent in Senate) |
Status | Announced: April 30, 2015 Formal launch: May 26, 2015 Endorsed Hillary Clinton: July 12, 2016 Lost Nomination: July 26, 2016 |
Headquarters | 131 Church Street, Suite 300 Burlington, Vermont |
Key people |
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Receipts | US$180,630,234.25 (2016-3-31) |
Slogan |
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Chant | |
Website | |
The 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, the junior United States Senator and former Representative from Vermont, began with an informal announcement on April 30, 2015, and a formal announcement that he planned to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vermont. Sanders had been considered a potential candidate for president since at least September 2014. Though he had previously run as an independent, he routinely caucused with the Democratic Party, as many of his views align with Democrats. Running as a Democrat made it easier to participate in debates and get his name on state ballots.
Sanders's chief competitor for the nomination was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sanders drew large crowds to his speaking events and his populist, socialist, and social democratic politics won him particular support among Americans under 40. He performed strongly with white voters, but consistently trailed Clinton by 30 or more percentage points among black voters; polls showed a close race among Hispanic voters.
Sanders focused on income and wealth inequality, which he argued is eroding the American middle-class, and on campaign finance reform. Unlike most other major presidential candidates, Sanders eschewed an unlimited super PAC, instead choosing to receive most of his funding from direct individual campaign donations. In September 2015, The New York Times reported that the campaign had received one million individual donations, becoming the first in 2015 to reach that threshold. Sanders raised $20,000,000 in the month of January 2016, $5,000,000 more than Clinton during the same time period, with an average donation of $27. Sanders frequently mentioned this $27 figure on the campaign trail as proof of his grassroots support.