Sen. Bernie Sanders | BernieCrats.com

Biography

Bernard Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Eli Sanders, a Polish Jewish immigrant who came to the United States with almost nothing, and Dorothy Glassberg. He grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in Flatbush, attended Brooklyn College before transferring to the University of Chicago, where he was active in the civil rights movement and earned a BA in political science in 1964. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 March on Washington.

After college, Sanders moved to Vermont, where he worked as a carpenter, filmmaker, and writer before turning to politics. He ran for governor and Senate as a third-party candidate multiple times in the 1970s before being elected mayor of Burlington in 1981 — defeating a six-term incumbent by ten votes. As mayor, he built affordable housing, reformed city finances, and put Burlington on the map as a model of progressive governance.

He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990 as an independent — the first independent elected to Congress in decades — and served eight terms. In 2006, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Vermont, where he served until January 2025. In the Senate, he chaired the Budget Committee, authored the most ambitious Medicare for All legislation ever introduced, and became the most popular senator in the country by approval rating among his constituents.

Sanders lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife Jane. He has four children and seven grandchildren. His 2016 presidential campaign, run without a Super PAC, raised $228 million from 13 million donations averaging $27 — reshaping American politics and moving Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, and the Green New Deal from the margins into the mainstream of Democratic politics. He won re-election to the Senate in 2024 with 63 percent of the vote.

In the Senate & the Fighting Oligarchy Tour

Sanders is serving his fourth term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in November 2024 with 63 percent of the vote — a term that runs through January 3, 2031. He is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history, and serves as Senate Democratic Outreach Chair, a party leadership role. He is not on a ballot again until 2030.

His 'Fighting Oligarchy' national tour with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has drawn some of the largest political crowds in the country, and his endorsement has become among the most consequential in Democratic primary politics. In the 2026 cycle he has backed Abdul El-Sayed (MI), Cori Bush (MO), Melat Kiros (CO), Adam Hamawy (NJ), Brad Lander (NY), Claire Valdez (NY), Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY), Justin Pearson (TN), Analilia Mejia (NJ), Randy Villegas (CA), Peggy Flanagan (MN), Aber Kawas (NY), Donavan McKinney (MI), and Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor.

In the Senate he has continued to press for Medicare for All, a $17 federal minimum wage, lower prescription drug prices, and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. As chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee he made pharmaceutical pricing a central fight. The movement that grew out of his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns — the movement this site is named for — has now put a generation of democratic socialists and progressive populists into office at every level of American government.