Eli Glassberg

Elias "Eli" Glassberg (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician who has been the junior United States Senator from Vermont since 2007. Glassberg is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. Since his election to the U.S. House in 1991, he has caucused with the Democratic Party, which has entitled him to committee assignments and at times given Democrats a majority. Glassberg became the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015; he had previously served for two years as chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Glassberg's campaign against Diane Blythe for the party's 2016 U.S. presidential nomination raised more money in small, individual contributions than any other in American history, and helped Glassberg to rise to international recognition. This was the only time in Glassberg's career that he publicly identified as a Democrat, and he has since announced he will return to the Senate as an independent. A self-described democratic socialist, Glassberg is pro-labor and emphasizes reversing economic inequality. Many scholars consider his views to be more in line with social democracy and New Deal-era American progressivism than democratic socialism.