Who is Bernie Sanders?

Current job: US senator from Vermont. Running for president of the United States as a Democratic candidate.

Age: 78

Family: Sanders is married to political consultant Jane Sanders, and has one biological son (Levi) from a previous marriage and three stepchildren (Heather, Carina, David).

Hometown: Burlington, Vermont

Political party: Independent but caucuses with Democrats

Previous jobs: Mayor of Burlington from 1981 to 1989. Member of the US House of Representatives from Vermont's at-large district from 1991 to 2007.

Who is Bernie Sanders' direct competition for the nomination?

Based on a recurring series of national surveys we conduct, we can figure out who the other candidates competing in Bernie Sanders' lane are, and who the broader opponents are within the party.

The average Sanders-satisfied respondent said they were satisfied with 3.3 other candidates , which is the lowest average number of rivals for a candidate in the race. That's good: it means that people who like Bernie tend to be narrowing down their choices. His supporters are committed, sure, but the "Bernie-or-bust" crowd may be a bit of a myth: it's worth noting only 15 percent of his supporters said they were satisfied with him and him alone.

, which is the lowest average number of rivals for a candidate in the race. That's good: it means that people who like Bernie tend to be narrowing down their choices. His supporters are committed, sure, but the "Bernie-or-bust" crowd may be a bit of a myth: it's worth noting only 15 percent of his supporters said they were satisfied with him and him alone. Despite their ample political differences, as the two most popular candidates with experience running for the presidency both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would be satisfactory to large groups of people who said they'll vote in the Democratic primary. All told, about 50% of people who'd be satisfied with Sanders as nominee would also be satisfied with Biden as the nominee.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is also popular among those who'd be satisfied with Sanders. Indeed, Warren is in the unique position of being the only contender as or more popular among Sanders supporters than she is among Democratic primary voters as a whole. Of those who'd be satisfied with Sanders as nominee, just under half said they'd also be satisfied with Warren as nominee.

INSIDER has been conducting a recurring poll through SurveyMonkey Audience on a national sample to find out how different candidate's constituencies overlap. We ask people whether they are familiar with a candidate, whether they would be satisfied or unsatisfied with that candidate as nominee, and sometimes we also ask whether they think that person would win or lose in a general election against President Donald Trump.

Read more about how we're polling this here.

What are Bernie Sanders' political positions?

What are Bernie Sanders' political successes?

Sanders' key policy positions, once considered radical, were made mainstream via the popularity of his 2016 campaign.

In 2016, the Democratic Party adopted the most progressive platform in its history. Today, many Democratic candidates are running on ideas popularized by Sanders.

Sanders has helped energize young voters, gaining more of the youth vote in 2016 than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined.

Sanders is the longest serving independent in the history of the US Congress, and the first Jewish politician to win a presidential nominating contest.

Where does Bernie Sanders poll best?

Based on the 12 polls conducted by Insider since late August, we can gather a sense of the geographic regions where candidates are overperforming when it comes to how satisfied voters would be if they were chosen as the presidential nominee. Though the first four primaries are in the Western Midwest, New England, the South Atlantic and Mountain regions, the four regions that allocate the bulk of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are the South Atlantic (16%), Pacific (16%), Mid-Atlantic (16%) and Eastern Midwest (15%).

Voters in the Mountain region were most satisfied with Sanders as a candidate at a rate of 5.6 percentage points over other regions. He also does well in the Pacific (+3.1 percentage points) and West Midwest (+1.0 percentage points). He polls worst in the Mid-Atlantic region (-2.4 percentage points) and New England (-1.3 percentage points).

How is Bernie Sanders viewed by different wings of the Democratic party?

Sanders does especially well among those who identified as very liberal or moderately liberal. He does very poorly among those who identify as only slightly liberal or neither liberal nor conservative.

How much money has Bernie Sanders raised?

Just 10 hours after he announced, Sanders had already raised more than $4 million from nearly 150,000 individual donors.

He raised $6 million in the 24 hours after joining the 2020 presidential race.

Despite swearing off all private fundraising, Sanders has raised the most money out of any other candidate in the race.

In 2019's third quarter, Sanders brought in $25.2 million in grassroots donations and reported a whopping $33 in cash-on-hand, the most of any candidate.

On November 19, the Sanders campaign announced they had secured four million individual donations to their campaign.

How is Bernie Sanders viewed by voters compared to the competition?

Insider has conducted a number of other polls to check in on how these candidates are perceived in comparison to one another. When we asked respondents to one poll to rank how far to the left or to the right they considered the candidates, Bernie Sanders was by a long shot viewed as the single most left-leaning candidate in the field. Sanders is the second-most experienced candidate in the field after only Biden when we asked respondents to rank the candidates based on how prepared they are for the rigors of the presidency given what they knew about their history of public service and experience with government. And when asked how likable or personable respondents perceived the candidates to be, Sanders was found to be the third-most likeable in the field, though was considered more likable by men than women.

Could Bernie Sanders beat President Trump?

Referring back to INSIDER's recurring poll, Bernie Sanders overall is believed to be a strong candidate in a general election against Donald Trump compared to your typical Democrat. For a typical candidate, the majority of respondents are undecided about how they think they'd perform, but not Sanders: just shy of half of people who say they'll vote in the Democratic primary think he'd beat Trump, and about a third think he'd lose. That winning percentage is more than twenty points points higher than typical, which is rather good among the 2020 contenders.

How do Democratic voters feel about Bernie Sanders's qualifications?

Insider has conducted polling about how voters feel about candidate attributes or qualifications. We asked respondents about a list of possible qualifications and if they made them more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate for president.

For example, among respondents who said they'd vote in the Democratic primary, 19% said a candidate being a college professor made them likelier to support them, while 4% said it made them less likely to, for a +15% net favorability. We can then see how different candidates' resumes stack up compared to those preferences.

Attributes perceived as most valuable include released tax returns (+43%), status as a Senator (+40%), that he grew up poor (+28%), history as an activist (+28%), his 20+ years of government service (+21%), status as a child of immigrants (+21%), and identity as a Democratic socialist (+18%).

Attributes considered to be a liability based on the preferences of self-reported Democratic voters include vote for 1994 crime bill (-8%), and his age of 70 or over (-24%).

Read more of our best stories on Bernie Sanders: