Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a series of articles interviewing the field of candidates running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.

Levi Sanders says when he heard last October that four-term Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter announced she wouldn’t run for re-election in 2018, “I just thought it was just a great opportunity.”

In an interview this past week, Sanders said “people just called me and contacted me and said ‘listen Levi, this is an open seat. The reality is you’ve got some really good skills and you’ve been in New Hampshire for quite some time.’”

Sanders, 48, is the son of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who battled Hillary Clinton to the end of 2016 Democratic presidential primaries.

Having a famous father means the younger Sanders grabbed national attention when he announced his congressional bid last month.

His campaign for the open seat in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District also made headlines because Sanders lives in Claremont, near the Vermont border and far from the 1st District, which covers the eastern part of the state.

While it’s uncommon for congressional candidates to live outside the district in which they’re running, it’s allowed. The U.S. Constitution only mandates that House members reside in the state they serve.

“I’ve lived in New Hampshire for 15 years. That’s an important point,” Sanders said. “Let’s make it very clear. I have lived in New Hampshire for 15 years. My children go to the public school system. I pay property taxes.”

And Sanders mentioned a couple of times that not living in the district isn’t important to voters.

“This is really not about the 1st District and the 2nd District,” he said. “This is about the people of New Hampshire and when I talk to people they don’t say ‘are you from the first or the second.’”

Sanders became the eighth Democrat to enter the race.

Asked why he decided to jump in, Sanders highlighted his nearly two decades of work as a legal services analyst in Massachusetts.

“I was thinking about it. I looked and there were some really good candidates,” he said. “But I basically decided that I worked at legal services for 17 years. I understand folks’ needs. I understand the pain and anxiety. They get beaten up every day by the system and I felt I’m the best person to address those issues.

“I just feel basically in terms of when I talk to people, I connect with people on a certain visceral level, that other people don’t.”

And he added the other seven Democrats in the race “were good folks, but I thought at a certain point I was somebody who was a better candidate. I thought I was somebody ultimately who understood the issues.”

Two of the Democrats already running were strong supporters of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 White House bid.

One of them is state Rep. Mark MacKenzie of Manchester. MacKenzie, who served 25 years as head of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO, helped set up Sanders’ steering committee in the Granite State and served as a Sanders delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The other is Rye state Rep. Mindi Messmer, who knocked on doors and canvassed for Sanders during the primary campaign.

“I really appreciate Mark. I know Mark well,” Sanders said. “And Mindi’s doing a really, really, good job in the Legislature.”

State Rep. Renny Cushing of Hampton, a longtime progressive advocate who’s backing Messmer’s congressional bid, recently said he “was surprised to find out that Levi Sanders was going to come over from Claremont and run for Congress for the 1st CD.”

“It’s kind of ironic that we’re in a district where we’ve had people who’ve been working for decades for social change here in the 1st CD who are running for office and it’s interesting that he decides to parachute in on the top and try to organize from the top down,” said Cushing, who also backed Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid. “That’s kind of contradictory to what his father’s campaign was.”

Responding to Cushing, Sanders said, “I understand the concern about the perception that I’m going into somebody else’s (district) and intruding.”

But he pushed back against the claim he’s running a top-down campaign. “I’m talking to people. They’re excited about my energy,” he said. “They’re excited about the fact of who I am. They believe in me. They believe that I am really there to help them out and do what I can to change their lives for the better.”

Sanders also highlighted that “in the first day we had 50 volunteers. In the second day I think we were at 108 volunteers. There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of energy, a lot of momentum.”

Others who’ve criticized Sanders’ decision to run in the 1st District ask why he didn’t run in the state’s 2nd District, where he lives, and primary challenge three-term Democratic Congresswoman Annie Kuster.

“I think that Annie’s doing a pretty good job,” Sanders said. “I think she’s actually doing a really good job.”

Sanders has never served in elected office, but was often been seen at his father’s side during the 2016 Democratic primaries.

The elder Sanders said in a recent statement he was “very proud of Levi’s commitment to public service and his years of work on behalf of low-income and working people.”

But the Vermont senator added “Levi will be running his own campaign, in his own way, with his own ideas. The decision as to who to vote for will be determined by the people of New Hampshire’s 1st District, and nobody else.”

Asked if he was seeking his father’s endorsement, Sanders said “I’m running this race because I’m Levi Sanders.”

He added he wants voters to “look at my ideas, look at my belief system. Look at what I’ve done in legal services for 17 years. Prior to that I worked in a food shelter for six years. And then they can make a determination of whether my views and what I bring to the table is something they want in the 1st District.”

But he did acknowledge he and his father “have very similar views.”

One of those shared views is health care. Sounding much like his father, Sanders said he’d push for “a Medicare for all health care system that guarantees health care for everyone.”

They’re also on the same page when it comes to tuition-free college, equal pay for women and a big boost in the federal minimum wage. Both of them also were receptive to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

“As somebody who’s been in a union for 23 years, I can tell you definitely that the folks that I talk to overall think it’s a good idea,” he said.

When it comes to reducing gun violence, Sanders favors raising to age to 21 to buy firearms, universal background checks and banning bump stocks, which were used by the shooter in last autumn’s massacre in Las Vegas.

And he opposes the president’s suggestion to arm some teachers with concealed weapons, saying “it’s imperative that teachers teach and not be armed with a gun. That’s an absolute no.”

The other Democrats running in the 1st District are state Executive Councilor Chris Pappas of Manchester, Maura Sullivan of Portsmouth, a U.S. Marine veteran who served in the Iraq War and worked at the Pentagon in the Obama administration, Rochester City Attorney and Iraq War veteran Terence O’Rourke, retired Portsmouth trial lawyer Lincoln Soldati, a former Somersworth mayor who also spent 17 years as Strafford County attorney, and technology executive and community activist Deaglan McEachern of Portsmouth.

The three Republicans who’ve launched campaigns are businessman and state Sen. Andy Sanborn of Bedford, Eddie Edwards of Dover, a Navy veteran and former South Hampton police chief who also served as top law enforcement officer for the state’s liquor commission, and Mark Hounsell of Conway, a Carroll County commissioner and former state senator.

Find more profiles of 1st District candidates at seacoastonline.com/topics/nh-congressional-candidates.