VERMONT — Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to run for president if he thinks he’s the best candidate to beat President Donald Trump.
“If there’s somebody else who appears who can, for whatever reason, do a better job than me, I’ll work my ass off to elect him or her,” the Vermont independent said in an interview with New York Magazine.
But “if it turns out that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run,” Sanders told the magazine.
Sanders, along with many other rumored 2020 contenders, traveled extensively across the country to campaign for Democratic candidates ahead of the November midterm elections.
He has long been an outspoken critic of the President. Sanders called the Democratic midterm victories “a rejection of not only a reactionary President, who has tried to throw millions of people off health care and give tax breaks to billionaires, but also a rejection of his racism and sexism and homophobia and xenophobia.”
Sanders’ grass-roots following on the political left is unparalleled in Democratic politics, and he has been eyed as a potential 2020 candidate. He has championed progressive causes like “Medicare-for-all”and higher taxes on the country’s richest citizens.
