How does a 25-year-old press secretary from North Omaha end up quitting her political party live on cable news two decades later? Symone Sanders has answered that question in pieces, across interviews, a memoir, and one unscripted moment on air. This piece pulls those pieces together.
In brief: Symone Sanders-Townsend grew up in North Omaha, Nebraska, and became a national name in 2015 as Bernie Sanders’ press secretary. She later advised Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, joined MSNBC in 2022, married Shawn Townsend that same year, and in March 2025 announced live on air that she was leaving the Democratic Party. She now co-hosts The Weeknight on MS NOW, MSNBC’s rebranded successor network.
Growing Up in North Omaha, In Her Own Words
Sanders was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in December 1989, and raised in the city’s north side by her mother, Terri, and father, Daniel, a retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee. She’s talked about her mother’s influence often. Terri Sanders ran a seamstress and event-planning business out of their home for 16 years.
In a 2023 conversation with Monarch Magazine, Sanders described the pressure to leave Omaha after high school instead of building a life there. She recalled being told that success meant getting good grades, going to a good school, and then moving away from her community. She chose Creighton University instead, staying in the city.
That decision shaped her early organizing work. While at Creighton, she helped start a movement connecting young Black professionals across Omaha. At 16, she’d already introduced Bill Clinton at a Girls Inc. fundraiser — an early sign of the public-speaking instinct that would define her career.
From Bernie Sanders’ Press Secretary to the Biden-Harris White House
Sanders graduated from Mercy High School in 2008 and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Creighton University in 2012. Her first job out of college was at Time Out Foods, a Black-owned restaurant in Omaha, before she moved into politics — first working in the communications office of former Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle, then serving as deputy communications director for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chuck Hassebrook’s 2014 campaign. In 2015, at 25, Bernie Sanders hired her as national press secretary for his presidential campaign — an unusual pick for someone with no prior White House-level experience.
The visibility from that role carried her forward. She became a CNN commentator after the 2016 primary, advised Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, and then served as senior adviser and chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris from January 2021 to January 2022. Multiple outlets reported her exit from that office was voluntary, though the internal circumstances were never fully confirmed by a major outlet — an account that lines up with how her departure has been covered elsewhere.
Leaving the Democratic Party, On Live TV
The most surprising turn in Sanders’ public record didn’t happen in an interview. It happened on her own show. On March 15, 2025, during a broadcast of The Weekend, Sanders announced she was leaving the Democratic Party to register as an Independent, citing the party’s response to a Republican government funding bill.
Her panel looked stunned in the clip that circulated afterward. “I’m about to change my registration to independent, first and foremost,” she said, adding, “I’m pissed.” She was responding to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to support a GOP-backed funding measure rather than force a standoff.
Sanders didn’t stop at frustration with one vote. She’d spent nearly a decade as a Democratic operative before that on-air declaration — from the 2016 Sanders campaign through senior roles in the Biden and Harris operations. The switch made her one of the more visible cable figures to publicly break from the party in 2025.
- March 2015: Named national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ campaign at age 25
- January 2021–January 2022: Senior adviser and chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris
- January 2022: Joins MSNBC to host her own weekend program
- July 15, 2022: Marries Shawn Townsend in Washington, D.C.
- March 15, 2025: Announces on air she’s leaving the Democratic Party
Marriage to Shawn Townsend
Sanders married Shawn Townsend, Washington D.C.’s former “night mayor” and a principal at the Dewey Square Group, on July 15, 2022. Bakari Sellers introduced the couple in 2019, and Townsend proposed on Easter Sunday 2021 after a courtship she’s called private but serious.
The wedding itself was staged as a decoy. Around 100 guests thought they were attending a “Toast to Townsend” engagement party at D.C.’s Larz Anderson House. Instead, they watched the couple marry. In her vows, Sanders told Townsend, “To put it simply, you’re the best man I know,” adding that he’d “always just been the most thorough person.”
Townsend’s vows referenced their everyday life together rather than the political world they both work in. He described “the moments behind closed doors,” from arguing about Real Housewives to photobombing her Zoom calls, as “time well spent.” The two honeymooned in the Mediterranean that fall and live in Washington, D.C.
Sanders had earlier told People she expected a small wedding limited to close friends and family, distinct from any headline-grabbing spectacle. The surprise format let her follow through on that intention while still gathering the wider circle who’d expected an engagement toast, not a ceremony.
The Book, MSNBC, and the Move to MS NOW
Sanders published a memoir, No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America, with Harper in 2020, before her MSNBC career began. It drew on her campaign-trail years and framed her as an author as much as a strategist, a label Monarch Magazine later used when profiling her.
She joined MSNBC in January 2022 to host her own weekend program, debuting with an interview with First Lady Jill Biden. She told The Hollywood Reporter at the time that after years spent as a spokesperson for other people, the new show would finally be just her. She was also direct about what the platform meant to her personally.
Her show evolved several times over the following years. Her solo weekend program, Symone, ran from May 2022 until January 2024, when it was replaced by The Weekend, a morning panel show she co-hosted with Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele. That show ended in May 2025, when the trio moved to weeknights to launch The Weeknight at 7 p.m. ET. In November 2025, MSNBC rebranded as MS NOW, and Sanders-Townsend continued in her role; in mid-2026, Luke Russert joined The Weeknight to replace Menendez alongside Sanders-Townsend and Steele.
What This Means to Her, In Her Own Words
Sanders has framed her career less around ambition and more around representation. Discussing her MSNBC debut, she said there had long been a lack of people who looked like her on television, and that gap shaped how she saw her own opportunity. That idea — visibility as its own form of work — runs through how she’s talked about both her TV career and her political past.
Her break from the Democratic Party carried a similar logic: speaking plainly rather than staying quiet for the sake of party loyalty. She argued that Senate Democrats had one real opportunity to stand up to the administration and, in her view, let it pass. [INTERNAL LINK: Democratic Party defections 2025 → political realignment coverage] For Sanders, the on-air announcement wasn’t a stunt so much as a continuation of the same directness that built her career in the first place.
What Reporters Found That Wasn’t in the Interview
Sanders has been more forthcoming about her career than about her private life. Her father’s death and her mother’s business are documented in local Omaha reporting rather than in her own national interviews, and she rarely discusses her parents on air.
Reporters have also filled in details of her exit from the Harris operation that Sanders herself hasn’t addressed at length. Coverage at the time described a difficult internal dynamic within the vice president’s communications team, though no outlet confirmed specifics tied directly to Sanders, and she has not disputed or confirmed that account publicly. That gap between what’s reported and what she’s said remains one of the few unresolved threads in an otherwise well-documented career.
Mor on This Topic: Symone Sanders Net Worth: What a Career in Politics and TV Actually Built
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Symone Sanders known for?
Symone Sanders is known for serving as Bernie Sanders’ 2016 press secretary, advising the Biden-Harris campaign and administration, and now co-hosting political programming on MS NOW, formerly MSNBC.
Is Symone Sanders still a Democrat?
No. Symone Sanders announced on air in March 2025 that she was leaving the Democratic Party to register as an Independent, citing frustration with the party’s handling of a government funding bill.
Who is Symone Sanders married to?
Symone Sanders married Shawn Townsend, Washington D.C.’s former “night mayor,” in a surprise ceremony on July 15, 2022, after being introduced by Bakari Sellers in 2019.
Did Symone Sanders write a book?
Yes. She published a memoir, No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America, through Harper in 2020, drawing on her early campaign career.
Where is Symone Sanders from?
Symone Sanders grew up in North Omaha, Nebraska, and attended Creighton University, where she earned a business degree before entering Democratic politics.
What does Symone Sanders do now?
As of 2026, Symone Sanders-Townsend co-hosts The Weeknight on MS NOW (the rebranded MSNBC) alongside Michael Steele and Luke Russert, who joined the show in mid-2026 replacing Alicia Menendez.
Disclaimer: This article is based on Symone Sanders-Townsend’s public statements, her 2020 memoir No, You Shut Up, and reporting from The Hollywood Reporter, People, Vogue, The Grio, Monarch Magazine, and wire coverage of her March 2025 party switch.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter · The Hill · Washington Examiner/Baltimore Sun coverage of Sanders’ March 2025 party switch · The Grio and People’s coverage of the Sanders-Townsend wedding · Monarch Magazine · Wikipedia (Symone Sanders-Townsend)
