Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is keeping his options open on a presidential run in 2020.
“Yes, is the answer,” one Sanders associate who worked on the senator’s 2016 election campaign told the Hill. “He thinks he’s earned the right to run again and he believes if he would have been the [Democratic] candidate he would have won against Trump.”
The source also hinted that Sanders was making his potential election plans contingent upon the other candidates that enter the race.
“The last thing he’s going to do is step aside and let Joe Biden take it,” the Sanders associate said.
The 75-year-old senator has not said publicly whether he will seek a second attempt at the presidency in 2020, but some of the recent events he has held have stirred up speculation.
He traveled to Iowa this month to give the keynote speech at the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement’s “action convention,” marking his first visit to the state since losing the Iowa caucuses to Hillary Clinton in February 2016.
Sanders will also make another trip to the state next month to speak about his new book Bernie Sanders: Guide to Political Revolution.
The senator also held rallies in West Virginia and Kentucky this month, much like those on the 2016 campaign trail, where he attacked the GOP’s health care plan. He toured red states in April alongside Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.
Sanders mentioned in an interview a few weeks ago that he is “not taking [a presidential run] off the table,” but added that it is too early for him to decide on a possible election bid.