BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will return to the Senate for a fourth term.
Just after the polls closed in Vermont at 7 p.m., The Associated Press called the election for the independent senator over his Republican challenger, Gerald Malloy.
The 83-year-old senator won reelection to a fourth six-year term.
The self-described democratic socialist, is the longest-serving independent in Congress. Sanders got his political start as mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, from 1981 to 1989. He was later a congressman for 16 years. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
Malloy, 62, who served 22 years in the Army and was a defense contractor for 16 years, said he thought Sanders was going to retire after 34 years in Congress.
Sanders has said he decided to run again because the country faces some of the toughest challenges of the modern era, including climate change and reproductive rights.
“I just did not feel with my seniority and with my experience that I could walk away from Vermont, representing Vermont, at this difficult moment in American history,” he said during a recent WCAX-TV debate.
Even with Sanders’ win, control of the Senate hangs in the balance, If the GOP comes out on top as it was expected to, Sanders could lose some of his clout including chair of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.