Bernie Sanders, the iconoclastic independent senator from Vermont, was the first candidate from the left to officially challenge Hillary Clinton, with a low-key announcement outside the Capitol building in late April. He held a campaign kickoff in Burlington on Tuesday before heading to New Hampshire and Iowa later this week.

Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, has done relatively well with early fundraising efforts and will put pressure on Clinton with specific proposals on core progressive issues. Since his announcement late last month, he has already introduced legislation to break up so-called Too Big to Fail banks and to provide tuition-free public college. He has also been one of the Senate’s most vocal opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and fast-track authority, which Clinton has not weighed in on.


The campaign staff will continue to grow and likely won’t be fully set until early July. Here’s an early look at many of the key players in Sanders’ political orbit:

• Jeff Weaver is Sanders’ campaign manager. He served as the senator’s campaign manager during his successful Senate run in 2006 and served as chief of staff in Sanders’ House and Senate offices. He first began working for Sanders as a 20-year-old on his 1986 gubernatorial campaign.

• Phil Fiermonte, Sanders’ longtime state director, is the campaign’s field director. Fiermonte, who has worked for Sanders for 16 years, has long been in Sanders’ inner circle and helped manage his past campaigns. Most recently, he was heavily involved in coordinating the senator’s upcoming trip to Iowa. He was also previously listed as the treasurer of Sanders’ leadership PAC. In April, he joined Sanders, Sanders’ wife Jane and another adviser, Tad Devine, in Vermont for a planning weekend to discuss his bid. He’s a former member of the Burlington City Council and previously worked as executive director of the Vermont American Federation of Teachers. Both he and Weaver are Vermont natives.

• Tad Devine, a longtime Democratic strategist, has helped shepherd Sanders’ political efforts. Devine is a big name in Democratic politics: He has worked for several other presidential candidates, including John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis. He also has a rapport with Washington reporters, giving Sanders’ early political efforts some cachet. His exact role with the campaign remains undetermined, but he has been an important veteran Democratic voice for Sanders, the longtime independent who has said he will run to win the party’s nomination.

• Mark Longabaugh, one of Devine’s business partners, has played a central role in helping to organize the early stages of Sanders’ campaign, serving as an unofficial campaign manager of sorts before Weaver signed on. He ran former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign operations in New Hampshire.

• Pete D’Alesandro is Sanders’ Iowa campaign coordinator. The Des Moines Democratic operative has worked on campaigns for two decades, including for former Govs. Chet Culver and Tom Vilsack.

• Kurt Ehrenberg is Sanders’ New Hampshire field director. He comes to the Vermont senator from “Run Warren Run,” the draft effort that was pushing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for president. He has also previously worked as a political and legislative director for the AFL-CIO’s New Hampshire branch.

• Digital firm Revolution Messaging runs Sanders’ online fundraising and social media efforts — big for a candidate who’ll rely on small-dollar contributions and benefits from a strong social-media presence. Four members of the team worked on Barack Obama’s insurgent 2008 campaign — Scott Goodstein, who ran Obama’s social media efforts; Shauna Daly, who was deputy research director for the campaign; Arun Chaudhary, who ultimately became the first official White House videographer; and Walker Hamilton, the site architect for Obama’s campaign. Kenneth Pennington, who ran Sanders’ Senate social media platform, and Keegan Goudiss, a Revolution Messaging partner who has worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, will also work on the digital team.

• Nick Carter, managing director of Sanders’ campaign committee, is working full time on Sanders’ presidential campaign, playing a role in fundraising and communications efforts. Other communications staffers in Sanders’ orbit include Jeff Frank, Sanders’ press secretary, and Michael Briggs, his communications director, who is handling most of the press for the campaign so far and may transition full-time.

See the power players for Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and others.