Progressives Sweep Nation in Tuesday’s Primary Defying DCCC

By paulgibson51 on May 17, 2018 • ( 0 )

Also today, two great short CVNM videos, one endorsing Janene Yazzie in her PRC Dist. 4 race and one slamming Sandy Jones, Steve Fischmann’s opponent in Dist. 5. Details on how you can support both these candidates in 2 of the most important NM primaries.

Before diving into a summary of some very good primary news, please note that Conservation Voters of New Mexico has endorsed Janene Yazzie and Steve Fischmann (and Andrea Romero and Susan Herrera). They have created two 30-second videos, one introducing Janene Yazzie and one exposing Sandy Jones, Steve Fischmann’s incumbent opponent in Dist. 5. We offer both at the bottom of this post. They are 30-seconds each and tremendous. And some actions and events coming up.

Reconciliation & Re-remembering: A Community Dialogue. Thursday (TODAY) May 17, 5:30-8:30pm. Plaza De Espanola,,706 Bond St, Espanola, New Mexico 87532. iThe event hosts provide this description of the discussion planned. “In an unprecedented move, the Española Mayor and City Council made a decision to create a new fiesta council with the express purpose of removing the ultimate symbol of violence and colonization perpetrated against Native people in northern NM. Cultural conservatives and ruling class of Española are reeling from a perceived “threat to our culture”, despite the fact the Norteño culture extends well beyond the Fiesta pageantry. How will we, the working class people of Española and surrounding communities, work to build solidarity with our Pueblo neighbors? What conversations are required to facilitate truth-telling in the Valley? It has never been more obvious that the time has come to abolish Oñate from the Fiesta Entrada.” This seems a very relevant discussion given, La Estrada and the easement and water issues in Española Valley,
This weekend, canvass for your favorite candidates. This is not the time to sit on the sidelines and we have some great candidates worthy of your support, with canvassing and phone banking for candidates in Rio Arriba County (Romero and Herrera) the north part of Santa Fe (Romero), Madrid, Cerrilos and La Cienega (Yazzie) and in many districts in ABQ (Yazzie). Click here to find out what you can do and where.
Monday, May 21, ABQ, Black Lives Matter leads week two of the Poor People’s Campaign and the action shifts to ABQ. Retake will announce details as soon as they are available, but this will be a very important advance in NM’s Poor People’s Campaign. Save the date.
Monday, May 21, 6pm-7:30pm at New Energy Economy, 343 E. Alameda. Local Action Team will meet on Monday at 6pm to discuss a new version of our local People’s Platform, revised with input from our allies. We want to finalize this draft so we can create a survey in English and Spanish, so your input would be welcome. RSVP by writing to Jennifer Johnson at gridded@mac.com.

Progressives Thumb Noses at DCCC Win Big in Pennsylvania, Nebraska & Idaho

Thanks to Joyce Westerbur for forwarding me an email from Intercept reporter Ryan Grim, a writer for Intercept. Along with articles from Vox and Politico, that email informed the summary that follows. It is a summary of big wins in important races.

I figure the news is always so bleak, we all need an uplift sometimes. And for those of us who are tirelessly advocating within the Democratic Party to reject their centrist strategies and boldly proclaim a progressive message, yesterday should inspire you. A few more wins like this and maybe the DCCC will relent and stop tilting the scales for centrists who they think will win, but who we find utterly uninspiring. But to really prove to the DCCC that the path to victory travels on progressive paths, we now need to win these races in November. Retake will be developing a list of the races where bold new progressives are running in hopes that some of you may have come from these districts or nearby them and will reach out to friends and family to support these candidates: not just support them, but to canvass, call and contribute on their behalf.

Nebraska–A real stunner

Progressive-populist, Kara Eastman, has beaten her DCCC-backed opponent by more than 500 votes. She is proudly pro-choice, running against a former Republican, who served one term in Congress as a Democrat, with a record of voting to restrict abortion rights. Kara pulled off this upset with almost zero help from pro-choice groups. The online lefty world — PCCC, Justice Democrats, etc. — campaigned hard for Eastman, who ran on Medicare for All and a broadly progressive platform. This is a real chance for the left to put their argument to the test — that the way to win some of these seats is not with a former Republican who sort of still is one, but rather with somebody who stands up for what she believes in.

Idaho. An even more stunning result

Paulette Jordan, a 38-year-old two-term Idaho state legislator and a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, represents the young, fresh progressive face in the race. She’s picked up all the national endorsements, from Planned Parenthood to People for Bernie Sanders. The state’s Democratic establishment is lined up behind A.J. Balukoff, a 72-year-old businessman who ran for governor in 2014. Jordan crushed him with almost 60% of the vote.

Pennsylvania–Most stunning of all, only because of the volume of wins and their importance for the Democrats in trying to retake the US House.

In Lancaster, US House Dist. 11 Jess King, who was heavily featured in action network’s long January story that launched their coverage of populist-v-establishment candidates, cruised to victory. Her well-funded opponent who had endorsements from across the state dropped out after redistricting to run in a different district — but then failed to make the ballot there. King faces a tough challenge in one of the only PA districts that became more conservative as a result of the court-imposed redistricting.

In Allentown, the closely watched three-way race between the Trump supporter, the EMILY’s List candidate and the Bernie candidate almost turned into a disaster for Democrats, as the Trump guy (John Morganelli) was leading for part of the night. The race shows that money can still beat organizing in the compressed window of a primary campaign. Susan Wild’s campaign was running on fumes with little in the way of infrastructure when EMILY’s List came in and dumped a million dollars in the final weeks to back her. No Labels, which funnels big money into races to back business friendly conservatives, pumped money in to back Morganelli. And Bernie Sanders came to Allentown to rally for Greg Edwards. Even though Edwards had the biggest canvassing operation by far, it’s not easy to canvass 700,000 people in a sprawling (and recently redrawn) district. But it’s easy to reach them with a million dollars. More on that race here.

It looks like Wild will beat Morganelli by about 1,000 votes and Edwards will finish third, about 3,000 behind. There are no women serving in Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation. None. So now maybe there’ll be a few.

Meanwhile, Henry Wallace’s grandson, Scott Wallace, who seems to be at least as progressive as his grandfather, and less nuts, won the PA US House District 1 primary in a landslide.

John Fetterman, the biker-dude-looking populist, won the nomination to be lieutenant governor. He is a biker and a bit on the zany side. And he beat an incumbent Lt. Gov., which has never happened in PA.

And lastly from Pennsylvania two members of the Democratic Socialists of America upset two veterans of the Pennsylvania statehouse:

Archie Follweiler is the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania House district 187.
Summer Lee, the first African American socialist to represent southwestern Pennsylvania. Here’s a great New Yorker profile of Summer Lee/. She is unabashedly socialist and elected to serve in the PA state legislature.
Also in Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped their 41st state legislative seat of Donald Trump’s presidency, winning a special election Tuesday night in the Philadelphia suburbs. Democrat Helen Tai bested Republican Wendi Thomas in the Bucks County race — notching a 96-vote victory in a district that has previously favored Republicans, with Trump winning there by 3 percentage points in 2016 and Mitt Romney by 13 points in 2012.

Click here to read the full Politico analysis which identified five trends from the four primaries held Tuesday.

Click here to read the full Vox analysis. It covers all the races, includes the final results, and puts each race in the general election implications in November.

In solidarity,

Paul & Roxanne

Elect Janene Yazzie in PRC District 4

For information on how you can canvass or phone bank for Janene, write to Jeremy Sment at jeremy.sment@gmail.com. There is canvassing going on in ABQ and Santa Fe, as well as throughout Gallup. Click here to find out more about Janene and/or to donate to her campaign. She doesn’t get PNM and gas and oil money, but her opponent sure does.