Fulfilling Vow to Run 2020 Campaign Differently, Sanders Campaign Claims 70% of Top Leadership Now Women

Facing previous criticism that his campaign team during his 2016 presidential run was “too white” and “too male,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) received praise on Tuesday after it was reported his campaign has hired a diverse slate of high-caliber women for key posts on his 2020 leadership team.

As journalist Natalie Gontcharova of Refinery29 was the first to report, the Sanders campaign now claims that “every single one of its teams — management, political, policy, organizing, communications, advance, digital, and fundraising — has women, and predominantly women of color, in leadership positions. Overall, the national leadership team is around 70% women.”

According to Gontcharova, the ten new female staffers include (emphasis added):

The new staffers follow last month’s announcement of Sanders’ national co-chairs, who include: former Ohio state and Our Revolution president Sen. Nina Turner, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif), and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen. Over the weekend, the Sanders campaign also announced that staff workers would be unionized.

Tuesday’s news of the fresh hires was met with congratulations for many of the well-known progressive journalists, organizers, and scholars headed to the campaign as well as a nod to Sanders for taking concrete step towards fulfilling his promise to build a much more diverse and representative team: