(RoyalPatriot.com )- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been the runner-up in the Democratic primary in each of the last two presidential elections in 2016 and 2020, losing to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively.
Because of this, his name has naturally come up as a possible candidate again in 2024, though this time, Democrats have a person in the White House who still has a term left available to run for. In 2016, Democrat Barack Obama termed out, meaning he couldn’t run for re-election. And in 20202, it was Republican President Donald Trump who was the incumbent.
That makes this year a little different for Sanders. Yet, because that Democratic incumbent, Biden, hasn’t announced officially whether he will run for re-election, many people have started to question whether Sanders – the de facto leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in Congress – could run again.
Despite many people probably hoping he’d run again, Sanders is probably unlikely to throw his hat in the ring – assuming, of course, that Biden does eventually announce a re-election bid.
While Sanders certainly does have some more left-leaning viewpoints than even Biden, he probably won’t want to run against the incumbent president, but rather support him in his bid to win the White House again.
Sanders is considered very progressive, and he even is technically an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. But, unlike some of the other progressives in Congress – namely, the members of “The Squad” in the House – he hardly steps “out of line” to challenge the Democratic establishment.
In other words, it would be pretty out of character for Sanders to try to take on the Democratic Party’s unquestioned leader, especially since he is the current president. This is especially true because he probably wouldn’t want to campaign against Biden, which might further emphasize some of his deficiencies, which in turn would make the Republican candidates look even better than they already do.
Even in the last two presidential primaries that Sanders lost, he immediately endorsed the person in his party who ended up winning the nomination – again, Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. He has shown an eagerness to support liberal candidates against Trump twice in the past, and he’s likely to do that again this time around.
The one scenario where Sanders probably would run for president is if Biden somehow decided that he wanted to call it quits. In that case, Sanders would find himself hypothetically go up against Vice President Kamala Harris, who he might not be so afraid to take on.
That being said, Sanders may not have a political future at all after his current term in the Senate ends. In fact, he hasn’t committed to another run for the Senate again when his term ends in 2025.
He was asked recently by Stephen Colbert whether he’d run again, and he responded:
“Well, I’ve got a little while to make that determination. I’ll make it at the appropriate time.”
That doesn’t sound like a man who’s prepping for a run at president next year.
