Bernie Sanders, 78, Is Hospitalized And Cancels Upcoming Campaign Events After Heart Procedure
(JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders had two stents inserted for an artery blockage after being hospitalized in Las Vegas.
A Wednesday statement by Jeff Weaver, an aide to the Vermont Democrat and presidential hopeful, said Sanders had “experienced some chest discomfort” at a Tuesday campaign event. Testing found a single artery blockage and the procedure was completed without complications.
“Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days,” the statement said.
The Jewish lawmaker’s campaign events have been cancelled “until further notice,” Weaver said.
Sanders, 78, currently is polling in third place in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, behind Elizabeth Warren, 70, and Joe Biden, 76. If elected, Sanders would be the oldest president in American history.
Sanders has not released his medical records for the 2020 presidential campaign yet, but has said he would do so.
“You know, I think it’s the right thing to do,” he has told reporters. “The American people have the right to know about whether the person they are going to be voting for for president is healthy, and we will certainly release our medical records before the primaries.”
Sanders has been campaigning in high gear, attending seven events in two days in New Hampshire earlier this week, according to ABC News. His campaign raised $25 million in the third quarter of 2019, the largest amount for a Democratic presidential candidate so far this cycle.
However, despite Sanders’ popularity, he is not the most popular candidate among Jews. A Forward analysis found earlier this year that while large numbers of Jews donated to Sanders’ campaign, they donated less money overall than to other candidates like Pete Buttigieg, Biden and Kamala Harris.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO