The grassroots movement that fueled Bernie Sanders’ rise to prominence in the 2016 Democratic primary has just produced one of its first congressional candidates.



The Guardian has learned that Pete D’Alessandro, who helped guide the Vermont senator to a virtual tie with frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, will announce he is exploring a bid for Congress in Iowa’s third congressional district on Tuesday.

D’Alessandro is a veteran political operative who worked on campaigns for Paul Wellstone, Bill Bradley and a number of Iowa Democrats before becoming Bernie Sanders’ first campaign staffer in Iowa in the summer of 2015.

The district is a swing seat comprising Des Moines, its suburbs and south-western Iowa. Obama won the district twice before Donald Trump edged out Hillary Clinton in 2016. D’Alessandro will seek to challenge Republican David Young in 2018. A two-term incumbent, Young was a longtime Republican aide on Capitol Hill before being elected to Congress.

In a statement to the Guardian, D’Alessandro said: “For the past several months, progressives throughout Iowa’s third congressional district have contacted me and have asked me to consider running for the US House of Representatives. The many offers of support have been humbling. It is clear that a great many people believe it is not possible to change the clutter in Washington DC if we choose our candidates from the same failed pool that we have in the recent past.”

D’Alessandro’s bid represents a key test for the electoral prospects of Sanders’ allies. The seat has long been a political battleground and is expected to be once again in 2018 as Democrats try to regain their majority in the House of Representatives. Although several candidates who tied themselves to Sanders ran in a special election in California’s 34th district in March, that district is safely Democratic.

D’Alessandro’s race will mark a key measuring stick if the progressive message pushed by Sanders works in what is expected to be a competitive congressional primary and potentially in a swing district in November.

Young already lost a major ally in March when a Super Pac tied to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, pulled out of his district after Young announced his opposition to the American Health Care Act, the ultimately unsuccessful Republican effort to repeal Obamacare. The group spent nearly $2m on Young’s behalf in 2016.