Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders meets students at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines in September 2019. (Photo by Kathie Obradovich/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is heading back to Iowa this month as part of a new tour criticizing the Trump administration and associates like Elon Musk.
Sanders, who won second place in the Iowa Caucuses as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020, announced Wednesday the launch of his “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” campaign. As part of the tour, the Vermont independent will speak at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 22, in addition to speaking in Omaha the day before.
The new campaign will target areas won by President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election that elected a Republican to the U.S. House in 2024. Events will focus on issues facing working-class people, according to a news release, and will “outline how Americans can fight back against President Trump and Elon Musk.”
In the release, Sanders called for political action as Trump and Musk take actions that are “quickly moving the country toward authoritarianism, oligarchy, and kleptocracy.”
“Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power,” Sanders said in a statement. “Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for health care, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back.”
While Sanders has spent a significant amount of time in Iowa as part of his presidential campaigns, he is not seen as a likely candidate for the upcoming race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He told Politico in December 2024 that his current term in the U.S. Senate will likely be his last. While his first stops are in Iowa media markets, Iowa lost its former first-in-the-nation position in the Democratic presidential nominating process ahead of the 2024 election cycle.
Iowa Democrats have said the Democratic National Committee plans to revisit the calendar before the 2028 election season, however, earlier criticisms from DNC members about the caucus system remain despite the state’s shift to a mail-in presidential preference contest in 2024.
