Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders underwent a heart procedure after experiencing chest discomfort at an event, a campaign official said Wednesday, prompting him to cancel his upcoming schedule as he recovers.
“During a campaign event yesterday evening, Sen. Sanders experienced some chest discomfort,” Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in a written statement. “Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted.”
Weaver said that Sanders “is conversing and in good spirits.” The 78-year-old Vermont independent “will be resting up over the next few days,” according to Weaver. He added, “We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates.”
Sanders was in the midst of a busy campaign swing that took him from New Hampshire to Nevada this week. He had planned to be in California in the coming days. Sanders has kept up an aggressive travel schedule in recent months, regularly holding multiple events per day and sometimes campaigning in more than one state.
The senator had scheduled three public campaign stops for Wednesday in Las Vegas, including a gun safety forum that other White House hopefuls were slated to attend.
A campaign spokesman declined to immediately provide more details about Sanders’s condition or to disclose where he was on Wednesday, pointing to Weaver’s statement when asked by a reporter about his whereabouts.
Before Wednesday’s news, the Sanders campaign had been making plans to plow ahead in the key early nominating states. After announcing a hefty $25 million third-quarter fundraising haul Tuesday, the campaign said it was going up with its first television commercial of the campaign.
But it abruptly decided to put off plans for a $1.3 million investment to air the ad in Iowa on Wednesday. “It’s just a postponement,” said campaign spokesman Bill Neidhardt. He declined to elaborate further or explain the reasoning behind the postponement.
Sanders’s Democratic primary opponents took to social media Wednesday to wish him a swift recovery.
“Bruce, Team Warren, and I are sending all our best wishes for a speedy recovery to @BernieSanders,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) wrote on Twitter, referring to her husband, Bruce Mann. “I hope to see my friend back on the campaign trail very soon.”
Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) tweeted, “Thinking of @BernieSanders today and wishing him a speedy recovery. If there’s one thing I know about him, he’s a fighter and I look forward to seeing him on the campaign trail soon.”
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