Jerome Segal, philosopher and founder of the Bread and Roses political party, is entering the race to fill a U.S. Senate seat after Sen. Ben Cardin announced his retirement.
WTOP’s Kate Ryan reported Segal’s plans to run on Thursday. His announcement comes after he ended his 2024 presidential campaign.
Cardin has long served in Maryland politics — before being elected to the Senate, he spent 20 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing a big part of Baltimore and a number of local suburbs.
Cardin’s retirement means that his seat will be taken over for the first time since 2006. He becomes the third Democratic senator other than Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan to not seek reelection next year.
In 2018, Segal ran for the Maryland Senate as a Democrat to challenge Cardin, but got only 3% of the vote while Cardin got 80%.
He was a University of Maryland professor until he retired in 2019. In that same year, Segal founded the Bread and Roses Party after his disappointing Senate run. According to its website, the party identifies itself as “a Strong Utopian and International Orientation, One in Pursuit of a New American Dream and a World of Peace and Justice.”
The political party also said they “believe in choice” and looks at “public policy as a vehicle for expanding this liberty, and elections as a way of influencing policy.”
Segal’s career in politics began in the 1970s when he worked on Rep. Donald Fraser’s staff and worked for United States Agency for International Development, according to his presidential biography.
Segal founded the Jewish Peace Lobby in 1989, which according to its website, “seeks to promote a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
He also ran for president in 2020, NBC4 reported.
Segal will be joining Maryland Rep. David Trone and Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando, who recently announced their bids, vying to get the Maryland Senate seat.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
