Peter Jacob, the Central Jersey progressive Democrat and Bernie Sanders for President backer, won’t run for Congress in 2020, he tells InsiderNJ.

I’m “focusing on my service as a social worker and putting my efforts into building up genuine progressive movements in NJ like Our Revolution,” said the Union social worker and the Democrats’ 2016 nominee for Congress.

U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7) beat him 54-43%. Jacob ran again in 2018 and lost in the primary (19%-67%) to eventual general election winner U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-7), who had the Democratic Party establishment at his back.

InsiderNJ asked Jacob tonight if he backs Malinowski’s 2020 reelection.

“I’m supporting Bernie 2020, and candidates who genuinely support single payer health care, a Green New Deal, ending endless warfare overseas, and creating an economy in which working class people have influence over what they produce,” he said. “Anything short of that, will not save America, and by extension, our world. I only have time to put effort behind such candidates. Happy to support, if he genuinely fights for those ideals.”

He said he feels real energy mobilizing behind Sanders’s presidential campaign in New Jersey, home to the Vermonter’s political director, Analilia Mejia, where Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz issued a pro-Sanders endorsement this summer.

“I feel it at kick off events throughout counties and towns across NJ,” Jacob said. “Bernie also has the most individual donations compared to Biden and Warren combined.