Former Sanders campaign aide comes up short in congressional bid

Pete d’Alessandro (D), a former campaign aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on Tuesday was defeated in the Democratic Primary in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. 

D’Alessandro received roughly 15 percent of the vote and finished in third place. 

Cindy Axne (D) won the primary with 58 percent of the vote and is set to face off against Rep. David Young (R-Iowa) in the race for the House seat in November. 

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D’Alessandro served as Sanders’s 2016 Iowa state director and received the senator’s endorsement in January.  

Sanders also helped raise money for d’Alessandro’s campaign and headlined a rally for him in February. 

D’Alessandro praised Sanders in a statement on Tuesday thanking the senator, saying his campaign would not have been possible without Sanders’s 2016 “political revolution” where Sanders finished second to Hillary Clinton in the primaries for the Democratic nomination to run for president.

“Someone like me couldn’t even be in the race,” d’Alessandro said of Sanders paving the way for him. “The fact that so many people like me are in these races throughout this country is actually the story. We’re gonna win some, we’re gonna lose some, but the story isn’t necessarily about the win-loss score.”

The senator on Wednesday praised d’Alessandro in a statement saying “despite being heavily outspent,” d’Alessandro “ran a great, grassroots campaign in Iowa. I am sorry he lost.”

Young won the Iowa district by nearly 14 points in 2016. President Trump defeated Clinton in the district by 3.5 percentage points.