Bernie Sanders kicks off 2020 bid calling for ‘political revolution to transform America’

Vermont senator begins presidential campaign in Brooklyn, the New York City neighbourhood where he was 'born and bred'

Bernie Sanders has kicked off his 2020 presidential bid, declaring his campaign would be a “a political revolution which is going to transform America”.

The rally was held at Brooklyn College in the New York City neighbourhood where the Vermont senator was “born and raised”.

“Thank you for being part of a campaign which is not only going to win the Democratic nomination, which is not only going to defeat Donald Trump, who is the most dangerous president in modern American history, but with your help we are going to transform this country,” Mr Sanders told a crowd of cheering supporters.

This is Mr Sanders’s second attempt at officially vying for the White House. He formally announced his 2020 candidate in February on Vermont Public Radio after calling Mr Trump a “racist, a sexist, [and] a homophobe”. He said he would be building his campaign on the success of his 2016 run.

“What I promise to do is, as I go around the country, take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of – a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings – that’s what I’m going to carry all over this country,” Mr Sanders said during the radio interview.

He added: “We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it’s time to move that revolution forward.”

Campaign priorities include “Medicare for all”, a $15 (£11) per hour minimum wage and addressing climate change.

Mr Sanders joins the 2020 race not as an outlier but as one of the best-known candidates in a large and expanding field.

He also has a strong base of small-dollar donors: in the first week of his campaign, Mr Sanders raised $10m (£7.5m), far more than his rivals.

He joins a long list of candidates gunning for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination including Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Cory Booker and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand among others.