[L]evi Sanders, son of Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, looks like his father, sounds like his father, thinks like his father.
“The basic difference,” the younger Sanders tells Vice.com, “is that I’m a vegetarian and he’s not.”
That, and Levi Sanders reaps fewer votes.
The 49-year-old Claremont, New Hampshire, legal analyst was one of 11 candidates running Tuesday for New Hampshire’s Democratic nomination for an open congressional seat in the eastern first district.
Bernie Sanders won the Granite State’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary by 22 points and, according to the latest University of New Hampshire poll, tops its list of potential 2020 candidates, ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
But while Levi Sanders campaigned on the same issues as his father — Medicare for All, a $15 an hour minimum wage, tuition-free public college — he raised only about $40,000 and, on Tuesday, garnered only enough votes to top the bottom tier of candidates, lagging far behind victor Chris Pappas, an openly gay former state lawmaker now serving on the governor’s executive council.
Levi Sanders did win plenty of press, although not always for the right reasons.
“Mr. Sanders’s campaign, for a House seat in a competitive district, has puzzled everyone from the most enthusiastic Bernie supporters to his 10 Democratic opponents, more than a few of whom seem all too eager to dismiss his candidacy,” the New York Times reported in a recent story.
“Because he lives outside the district, on the other side of this outsider-averse state, he has even been accused of carpetbagging,” the Times continued. “Oh, and one more thing: His father has not endorsed him.”
The Vermont senator explained his thinking in a statement to the Boston Globe: “Levi has spent his life in service to low-income and working families, and I am very proud of all that he has done. In our family, however, we do not believe in dynastic politics. Levi is running his own campaign in his own way.”
That way, national reporters noted, was definitely the road less traveled. His career path has been no less distinctive.
“The married father of three spent his career working at a food bank and then in legal services, helping people apply for health and disability aid,” the Washington Post wrote in a campaign profile of Sanders, “but beyond an abortive bid for Claremont City Council 10 years ago, he has no personal political experience.”
Levi Sanders isn’t alone in lagging behind the Bernie bandwagon. The Vermont senator’s brother, Larry, lost a 2016 bid for British Parliament, while Carina Driscoll failed this March to win her stepfather’s old job as mayor of Burlington.
Poll workers still were counting ballots Tuesday night when news outlets began publishing headlines like the one that appeared in the Huffington Post: “Bernie Sanders’ Son Levi Loses New Hampshire Congressional Primary.”
Then again, Levi Sanders may have hit on another career option.
“You know, I’m not Bernie’s son,” he told the Globe. “I’m the son of Larry David’s fourth cousin.”
