Sen. Bernie Sanders is officially launching his run for president on Tuesday in Burlington, campaign officials announced.
The event is set for 5 p.m. on May 26 at Burlington’s waterfront park and will feature free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, the campaign announcement said.
“My hometown of Burlington and the people of Vermont have a special place in my heart,” Sanders said in a release. “There is nowhere else in the world where I would hold an event this important.”
Sanders held a press event in Washington, D.C. on April 30 – two days after VPR reported on his imminent announcement – in which he outlined what his staff called his “agenda for America.” According to his Senate staff, which helped put on the event, that wasn’t a campaign event, despite Sanders plugging his official campaign website as a fundraising platform and referencing his intention not to run a negative campaign.
Tuesday’s kickoff is Sanders’ first public campaign event in Vermont since announcing his presidential run, though he has held events in Iowa and New Hampshire as part of the “testing the waters” phase of the then not yet official campaign.
