NEW YORK (JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will likely run for president.
Sources familiar with the longtime Jewish senator told The New York Times that he will release a statement on Thursday and make a more formal announcement next month in Burlington, Vermont, where he was mayor in the 1980s.
Sanders, 73, is an Independent but will run for president as a Democrat, according to the Times. He currently is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and previously was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Sanders, who was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland, calls himself a “Democratic Socialist.” He will be a long shot to capture the party’s nomination, as Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and U.S. senator, showed a lead of 48 percentage points in the latest polls of potential Democratic candidates.
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