Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced earlier in February that he’s once again running for president of the United States, and the Brooklyn-born politician is kicking off his 2020 campaign back in his home borough.
Sanders announced that the first rally in his effort to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nominee will be at Brooklyn College in Flatbush on Saturday, March 2.
“On Saturday I’m going back to Brooklyn, where I was born and raised, for the first rally of our campaign,” he said on Twitter. “Let’s show Trump and the powerful special interests what they’re up against.”
Sanders grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood and even attended Brooklyn College before transferring to the University of Chicago. Sanders’s older brother Larry is a Brooklyn College graduate, and the Senator delivered the commencement speech at the City University of New York school in 2017.
Sanders did not win his 2016 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, which analysts early on dubbed a longshot for the progressive politician, but still, the bid did propel Sanders beyond initial expectations. At the announcement of his 2020 bid, plenty of supporters assured that they are still feeling the Bern.
This time around in his run for president, Sanders knows that he’ll face a “very different campaign” than that of 2016 against Hillary Clinton, he told Vermont Public Radio at the news of his second bid. The 2020 Democratic field is already looking diverse, with candidates including Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and more.
But the 77-year-old Senator told the radio that “we have got to look at candidates, you know, not by the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation or their gender and not by their age,” and that his grassroots, progressive path is gaining popularity and could be a sign of success.
“We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it’s time to move that revolution forward,” he said.
Bernie Sanders 2020 Brooklyn rally date, time
Kickoff Rally at Brooklyn College with Bernie Sanders:
Saturday, March 2
Event starts at 11:30 a.m., doors at 10
Brooklyn College East Quad
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Free and open to the public, though RSVP is encouraged
