WASHINGTON, D.C. - Nina Turner isn’t running for anything at the moment, but the longtime Cleveland politico still spends most of her time on the campaign trail.

The ex-Cleveland council member and Ohio state senator is traveling the country on behalf of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential bid, often introducing him onstage in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and speaking as a campaign surrogate at events he can’t personally attend.

“You need the opposite of what’s in the White House right now,” Turner said to warm up a Greenville, South Carolina crowd for Sanders as she praised his support for universal Medicare and a $15 minimum wage. “He is a visionary and he sets the tone. And he doesn’t wait for polls and special interests to tell him what is right and what is good. He stands up for the people whether it is popular or not popular."

Sanders returned some of the accolades when he took the stage.

Senator Nina Turner Takes You Through Bernie's History A few years ago our ideas were considered "radical." Not anymore. Now it is time to complete our political revolution. Posted by Bernie Sanders on Thursday, May 16, 2019

“What Nina has been doing for the last several years is the most important work that anyone in America can do,” Sanders said. “She has been going all over this country, getting people, young people, people of color, older people, involved in the political struggle. That’s what Senator Turner has been doing and I thank her very much for all of her efforts.”

At first blush, the outspoken 51-year-old African American history and women’s studies professor from Cleveland’s Lee-Harvard neighborhood seems an unlikely acolyte to the frazzle-haired Brooklyn-accented former mayor of Burlington, Vermont. But Turner says he’s got “heart soul agreement” and that’s why she left a post as the Ohio Democratic Party’s political engagement chair to campaign with Sanders in 2015, and has been on the Bernie bandwagon ever since.

“He really gets it and it is not political speak for him,” says Turner. “That is why being on this mission with him to transform this nation for the overwhelming majority of people that have been left behind is personal to me.”

Sanders first drew Turner’s attention with his 8 1/2 hour filibuster of a 2010 tax cut bill that President Barack Obama negotiated with congressional Republicans. She recalls her husband, Jeffrey, telling her “Baby, this is your candidate,” when Sanders announced his first presidential run because they had similar stances on issues like voting rights and wages. She felt that he spoke “unfettered truth to power, without really caring as much whose feathers were ruffled,” as she did. She also liked that he didn’t mind “going against the status quo for what’s right.”

Their paths crossed backstage when both were speakers at a 2015 Democratic National Committee women’s forum. Turner subsequently issued an endorsement of Sanders that dismayed many Ohio backers of his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They thought Turner supported Clinton, as she had volunteered for the “Ready for Hillary” SuperPAC that was formed to draft Clinton into the race. Turner says the SuperPAC was separate from Clinton’s campaign and her agreement to participate in its activities occurred before she knew other candidates were entering the race.

While Turner liked that Sanders opposed trade deals and wars “that made no sense,” she said his promises to “unrig” the system on behalf of the “poor and barely middle class” resonated most with her, as they reminded her of her mother, who died at age 42 after struggling to support seven children. Turner was a 22-year-old college student when her mother died and managed to complete degrees at Tri-C and Cleveland State University while helping her family get by.

“My family’s struggle, my family’s story and what the Senator was fighting for made me say I have to support this candidate - I can’t go with the status quo on this one, I have to do it,” she says. “He will say the word ‘poor’ where most candidates won’t say the word ‘poor’ because it’s a delusion that everyone is in the middle class. It’s politically correct to only talk about the middle class, but who’s going to talk about the poor? Who’s going to talk about the people in the communities I serve that don’t have food, or the people, elders in my community that can’t pay for their prescription drugs? Who’s going to talk about them? He talks about them all the time.”

Turner’s support for Sanders wasn’t the first time she bucked Ohio’s Democratic political establishment. After a corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County resulted in the racketeering conviction of former commissioner Jimmy Dimora and ensnared dozens of others, Turner backed a successful reform referendum known as Issue 6 that created the current county government system headed by a county executive. As the most prominent black official to support the proposal, Turner faced numerous attacks from other black Democrats who threatened to ruin her politically.

“More than my political affiliation, I consider myself a hellraising humanitarian,” says Turner. "Hell raising in the sense that I don’t just go along to get along. I stand up for what is right even if it puts me in a political conundrum. Supporting Senator Sanders was one of those moments when the status quo said “Uh uh, bad girl.”

Clinton defeated Sanders in Ohio’s Democratic primary and won her party’s nomination in 2016, but lost the November election and the Ohio vote to Republican Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Turner became president of Our Revolution, a nonprofit dedicated to pursuing Sanders’ political message. She participated in a Unity Reform Commission that altered the Democratic party’s nomination process in ways that disempowered superdelegates, who had helped to seal Clinton’s primary victory, and made it easier for people to participate in caucuses. When Sanders entered the 2020 presidential race, she became one of four Sanders campaign co-chairs.

In that capacity, Turner says she acts as Sanders’ "chief deputy people raiser.“ In addition to appearing at rallies and making fundraising calls on his behalf, she discusses Sanders’ vision with grassroots leaders around the country and attempts to secure political endorsements.

“In many ways I see this as a ministry," says Turner. I am on a mission to help make this world a better place. I couldn’t think of anything better to be doing right now than to help the man who has the heart soul agreement to bring about a revolution in this country. The type of revolution that will not leave working class blacks, whites, Latinx, Asian and indigenous people behind. There are many things I could be doing right now, but I’m on a mission. This is personal."

Turner says she believes Sanders can defeat Trump because of his crossover appeal to independent voters, and the “deep passion” of youthful millennial and Generation Z voters, who preferred him to both Trump and Clinton in 2016. More of them will be of legal voting age in 2020, she says.

Although Sanders is one of the oldest candidates currently running for president, Turner says younger voters like his authenticity and concern about issues like climate change and equal justice and rights for everyone in this country. She says younger voters don’t care that Sanders has identified as a socialist. Many are concerned they’ll have a worse quality of life than their parents, she says, and they appreciate that Sanders calls for free college for all and ensuring that tax cut benefits don’t all go to the wealthiest in society.

She says the “excitement” Sanders brings to the race will bring voters to the polls more than “middle ground stuff.”

The Shoulders We Stand on In This Struggle Our campaign is about bringing our people together to take on the powerful forces of greed, bigotry and authoritarianism. Posted by Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, May 14, 2019

“He’s going to tell us the truth and young people want that more than anything," says Turner. “They’ve got a BS meter, and I’m not talking about a Bernie Sanders meter. They can sniff out political BS a mile away.”

Turner is often mentioned as a potential candidate for elective jobs in Ohio. She ran for Ohio Secretary of State against incumbent Jon Husted in 2014, getting 35 percent of the vote in a year of steep losses for Ohio Democrats. In 2011, she weighed a primary challenge to Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, but decided against it after declaring the state’s newly redrawn congressional maps were manipulated to guarantee incumbent re-election.

She’s widely expected to run for Cleveland mayor in 2021, if Sanders doesn’t become president and give her a post in his administration.

“She could do a lot of great things,” says political ally Eric Kearney of Cincinnati, who served in the Ohio Senate with Turner. “She could run for U.S. Senate from Ohio. She has a lot of passion for the city of Cleveland and would make an excellent mayor. I am not sure exactly what Nina wants to do, but whatever it is, I think she will be a great success at it.”

Another political ally, Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper, describes Turner as “one of the more inspirational people anyone will ever see in politics.”

“I don’t know anyone in politics who gives a more impassioned or inspiring speech,” says Pepper. “She has a very broad network, more than most people in Ohio and the country, and a devoted set of followers behind whatever she decides to do.”

Turner puts off queries about her personal political ambitions by saying her only goal at the moment is electing Sanders. She says hometown supporters often ask if she’ll run for office again, and she’s leaving her options open.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she says. “I want to see him elected as president. I have not made any decision beyond that."

Although Turner currently works out of Washington, she says she still regards Cleveland as her home and often returns to see her husband and adult son. She says Ohio’s March 17 primary could be key in determining who secures the Democratic presidential nomination, and that Sanders will make more visits to the state in addition to his April town-hall meeting in Warren to decry General Motors’ closure of its Lordstown assembly plant, and his June appearance at a National Newspaper Publishers Association meeting in Cincinnati.

Turner says the Trump administration has been bad for Ohio in numerous ways, such as failing to make good on his promise to save Lordstown jobs, hurting farmers by engaging in tariff wars with Mexico and China, and attempting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would cancel millions of people’s health insurance.

She argues that Trump won Ohio by speaking “to the anxiety of the people,” and Sanders is in the best position of the Democratic candidates to win back the state because of his consistent opposition to bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans Pacific Partnership.

“There is no reason why the right Democratic nominee can’t win Ohio,” says Turner. “President Obama did it twice in 2008 and 2012. It just can’t be business as usual.”