Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will hold a campaign rally at Chicago State University on Thursday.

The event comes less than three weeks before Illinois’ March 15 primary election in which the Vermont senator faces former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was born in Chicago and raised in Park Ridge.

The rally site is an interesting choice for Sanders, who has been talking about income inequality and free college as major campaign themes. Chicago State has been hit hard by a lack of state funding due to the budget impasse in Springfield.

University officials recently announced they’ll skip spring break and end the school year early to save money.

The Sanders event is at the university’s Emil & Patricia Jones Convocation Center, at 9501 S. King Drive. Doors open at 6 p.m., and it’s free and open to the public. The campaign advises people attending to skip bags and limit items to small, personal ones like keys and cellphones.

Sanders also is scheduled to appear on an MSNBC show at the University of Chicago, his alma mater, but tickets are limited to invited students.

The Vermont senator has made several visits to opponent Clinton’s birth state, including a September rally at the U of C. He told 2,000 people packed into a campus cathedral that the ideas he’s promoting — a $15 federal minimum wage, 12 weeks of guaranteed paid family medical leave, pay equity between men and women — will require a “political revolution” from the ground up to be realized.

In August, Sanders held a $50-a-ticket fundraiser in Chicago.

Clinton and Sanders have been engaged in a close campaign in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But Clinton has a big lead in delegates, projected at 502 to 70, because hundreds of Democratic superdelegates have pledged to support her at the convention this summer.

A total of 2,383 delegates are needed to win the Democratic nomination.

___

(c) 2016 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.