Bernie Sanders Announces Deadline for Presidential Decision

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) announced Friday that he will decide by March if he will enter the 2016 presidential race—and whether he’ll run on a Democrat or Independent platform.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Sanders said his nomination would be more than a political game. “I don’t want to do it unless I can do it well,” he said. “I don’t want to do it unless we can win this thing.”

Sanders said he would make a “gut decision” about running and acknowledged that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would be his primary opponent.

Although Sanders is a socialist, his views on many issues regularly align with Senate Democrats. Still, he has criticized his colleagues in the past for their weaker approach to issues he sees as particularly dire, such as the income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform.

In an interview with C-SPAN‘s “Newsmakers” program in November, Sanders attributed the Republican midterm sweep of the Senate to lackluster campaigns on the Democrat side, stating, “I think many of the Democratic candidates did not run on an agenda which resonated with working people.”