<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&amp;c2=15743189&amp;cv=2.0&amp;cj=1&amp;&amp;c5=&amp;c15=">
Washington Examiner

Warren and Sanders bicker over whether November 1990 was 30 years ago

Bernie Sanders challenged Elizabeth Warren after she stated she was the only candidate who had beaten an incumbent Republican in 30 years.

Warren, 70, defeated Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. Sanders, 78, responded: “Just to set the record straight, I defeated an incumbent Republican running for Congress."

The U.S. senator for Massachusetts counted with her fingers and asked: “When?”

Sanders explained. “1990. That’s how I won. I beat a Republican congressman,” the Vermont senator said to laughter from the audience.

Warren said: “30 years ago. Wasn’t that 30 years ago?”

Sanders, who defeated Rep. Peter Smith in November 1990, 29 years and two months earlier, said again: "I beat an incumbent Republican congressman.”

Warren said: “And I said, I was the only one who’s beaten an incumbent Republican in 30 years."

“Well, 30 years ago is 1990, as a matter of fact,” Sanders said to some laughter from the audience.

Sanders ran as an independent when he beat Smith in the 1990 race for Vermont’s at-large congressional district. Apart from when he ran for president in 2016 and again this year, Sanders has not affiliated himself with the Democrats since entering the Senate in 2007.