Sen. Bernie Sanders Credit: File: Paul Heintz

Updated at 12:20 p.m.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has formally announced that he is running for reelection this fall.

In a press release announcing the decision Monday, the two-term U.S. senator said he would seek another six years in Congress to continue fighting wealth inequality in the country.

“Our struggle to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — must continue,” Sanders said. “And that is why I’m running for reelection.”

The candidate said he would formally launch his campaign in June with rallies across Vermont.

According to campaign spokesperson Arianna Jones, Sanders plans to seek the Democratic nomination in Vermont’s August primary. If he wins, she said, he would “respectfully” decline the nomination and run as an independent in the general election. Sanders would, however, accept the endorsement of the Vermont Democratic Party.

“That is what he has done in the past, and that is what he looks forward to happening in 2018,” Jones said, referring to Sanders’ 2006 and 2012 Senate runs.

Sanders, 76, spent eight years as mayor of Burlington before his election to Congress in 1990. After 16 years in the House, he ran for a Senate seat vacated by Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords.

Sanders lost the Democratic primary for president to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2016, but he has continued to travel nationally to stump for progressive causes and candidates. Sanders’ last campaign for U.S. Senate, in 2012, ended with a landslide victory over Republican John MacGovern in which Sanders got 71 percent of the vote.

Sanders’ wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, has been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors over her involvement in a 2010 land deal at Burlington College, where she was president at the time. The college later had to fold, in large part due to the real estate debt the school incurred during her tenure.

Sanders faces challengers across the political spectrum, though none have his political status or multimillion dollar campaign fund.

Homelessness advocate Jon Svitavsky, whose rivalry with Sanders dates back to the 1980s, backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race and is seeking the Democratic nomination for Sanders’ seat.

Air Force veteran Brad Peacock, who works as a farmer in Shaftsbury, is running as an independent on a progressive platform, including term limits for members of Congress and a $15 minimum wage for all Americans.

Only Essex Republican Jasdeep Pannu, whose campaign website calls for replacing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with the “Child Trafficking Enforcement Agency,” has filed paperwork to appear on ballots in Vermont.

Volunteers for the Sanders campaign were collecting signatures Saturday at the Burlington Farmers Market to get the incumbent on the ballot.

Sanders did not immediately respond to an interview request Monday.

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10 replies on “Bernie Sanders to Seek Reelection to U.S. Senate”

  1. Too bad you missed the lede.

    Let me help:

    Vermont’s junior U.S. senator refused Monday to promise to keep a contract with that state’s voters – if they re-elect him – by not seeking again the presidency.

  2. For a minute I thought Bernie was going to announce that he was retiring from living on the public dole and was going to try working for a living.

  3. Bad news for Vermont. Here is a man who managed to vote once during the 2016 election year as he was too buy running for POTUS. Bernie does not and never has represented me. He is a poltical hack, a hypoocrite,, and has no clue what life is about for people who actually work for a living. The 1% he continues to cite are not the ones I’m worreid about. It’s him and his Congressional “colleagues,” haters, liars, schemers, cheaters and arrogant snobs who ride the gravy train into the sunset.

  4. Bernie, I’m not voting for you again.

    You have become a sort of minstrel show of far-left porn. You were against the millionaires, then you became one. You have a remarkably thin record of legislative accomplishment. You’ve been giving the same speech for more than the 27 years I’ve lived in Vermont. But people love you. Well….bother.

    I’m done.

  6. The news of RudigerVT abandoning Bernie is going to make Bernie go into a funk and stop shaving for the rest of his life.

  7. Sanders learned a lot from his failed presidential campaign; this go around he should make a lot more money.

  8. Ya know Bernie isn’t as stupid as I thought.. For yrs when he moved to Vt he lived off his first wife, she left him so he lived off friends. Then he drew his first paycheck when he was 40 when he was elected mayor for Burlington. After that run, he ran for junior Senator. Ahh ha, finally another job where he can live off Vermonters and not have to work. Just make false promises and give fake speeches. Then he had the big idea to run for president, but he was paid off to leave the race! The millions were too good to pass up. So now he is one of those 1% he hates so much. What Vermonters want to know is.. is the investigation still going on for bank fraud against your wife and you??? Or were the FBI paid off too.?? Would love to see someone who is a real Vermonter run against ole socialist Bernie and win !!! You need to go Bernie.. Go live in California you’ll fit right in..

  9. People just keep complaining about the lack of progress and the stupid things that go on in Washington, but just keep reelecting the same people. Time for a change.

  10. Jon Svitavsky posted on Facebook Friday that he will be officially announcing his candidacy on Monday.

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