[L]evi Sanders launched his campaign for one of New Hampshire’s two seats in the United States House early this week.
Sanders, 48, announced his bid in New Hampshire’s first congressional district on his official campaign website, days after he told Vice News that he was seriously considering a run.
He will face off in the Democratic primary against seven other candidates.
Sanders’ platform echoes the themes of his father’s political career. He is calling for a “Medicare For All” health care system — a single-payer model his father has championed for decades. He also is campaigning on raising the minimum wage, making public higher education tuition-free, addressing the opioid crisis and advancing gender equality in the workplace.
“It is time to demand that we have a system which represents the 99% and not the 1% who have never had it so good,” he said in his official statement.
In a statement provided by a spokesperson, Sen. Sanders said he is “very proud” of his son’s “commitment to public service.”
“Levi will be running his own campaign, in his own way, with his own ideas,” he said. “The decision as to who to vote for will be determined by the people of New Hampshire’s first district, and nobody else.”
Levi Sanders is Bernie Sanders’ only biological child. The senator’s stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, is in the final stretch of her campaign running for mayor of Burlington, the first elected position held by her father.
Driscoll has embraced her father’s legacy in Burlington during her run for mayor, saying at one point, “I can’t point to some way that I would significantly run the city differently than Bernie did.”
She has also admitted that getting people to pay attention to issues not related to her father has been a struggle.
“I feel like if I want coverage I have to put Sanders in the subject line,” she said earlier this month. “We’re trying to get the word out about things that matter to people who live here, and the reporting has not been on that.”
