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Judging from March, the ideological left wing of the Democratic Party in Texas should be inconsolable.

After months of high hopes, the faction ran into a centrist buzz saw in the March 3 primary. Joe Biden practically locked up the Democratic presidential nomination, and progressive candidates experienced electoral drubbings.

Among the fallen: presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros, U.S. Senate hopeful Cristina Tzintzn Ramirez, and Audia Jones, a candidate for Harris County District attorney endorsed by Sanders.

But rather than licking their political wounds, leading progressive candidates still in the fight say theyre invigorated and eager to use the coronavirus pandemic, fights over voting by mail and calls for police reform to score some late victories in the July runoffs.

Every time we have a progressive run, we get a little bit closer, said Sara Stapleton-Barrera, who is in a runoff against state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. I feel like were slowly winning the war, but we have to get through some of these battles first.

Perhaps the most energy is coming from Austin, where two runoffs have the attention of progressives. Jos Garza is competing in the nationally watched Democratic primary runoff for Travis County district attorney. Mike Siegel is vying for his partys nomination in the 10th Congressional Districts Democratic primary runoff.

Garzas race is where the focus on police reform is arguably the clearest. Even before the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police prompted protests nationwide, Garza was challenging incumbent Margaret Moore from the left, arguing she was too harsh in her prosecution of nonviolent offenders. He earned the most votes in March and has promised to bring all police shootings and more police misconduct cases before a grand jury. He has also pledged not to accept campaign contributions from police unions.

Moore, meanwhile, has accused him of being inexperienced with the local criminal justice system and running a campaign focused on national issues instead of local ones.

In the 10th Congressional District, Siegel is running on a platform that includes supporting Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Siegel will face Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who has cited his medical experience while pitching Medicare Extra, a proposal that does not go as far as Medicare for All and leaves some private insurance in place.

I think this is the exact moment in history when progressives are in a place to lead, and its because the times have caught up the policies were fighting for, Siegel said. This is the time to run as a progressive. I feel really good not just about my chances, but the movement overall.

Candidates embracing the progressive wing of political thought jokingly argue they have the gift of turmoil on their side. Tea Party Republicans, for example, seized on the Great Recession and its aftermath to reshape their party. And despite some fear that Biden locking up the partys nomination swung the conversation back to the center, progressives believe a global health crisis and the gruesome killings of Black Americans at the hands of police will galvanize the public behind their causes, which include reallocating police funds, Medicare for All, and expanded paid sick and family leave.

I think we have an opportunity in these runoffs to advance some solidly progressive folks, said Alex Morgan, the executive director of Progressive Turnout Project.

Since 2016, when Sanders presidential campaign began receiving plaudits for bringing policy ideas like free college and single-payer health care into the national sphere, progressives have tried to deepen their foothold in the Democratic Party. By some measures, theyve been successful. During the June congressional primaries in New York, two Black progressives Jamaal Bowman, and Mondaire Jones triumphed over their more moderate foes.

But in Texas, challenges for these candidates remain.

Insurgent progressives are battling an electability argument that more moderate Democrats are the best options to flip legislative and congressional seats by appealing to disillusioned Texas Republicans in the purpling suburbs.

I dont think I would equate pragmatism to being more moderate, said Gandhi, Siegels opponent. The two candidates are vying to challenge U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, in what has historically been a Republican district.

I think being pragmatic indicates to people that youre willing to go beyond the partisanship that defines Washington, D.C., right now, he said. Thats what people are hungry for. People want candidates who will value science and objectivity above partisanship and ideology. People are tired of empty rhetoric.

But progressives reject the idea that a more centrist candidate would be a more successful candidate in swing districts across the state.

The mantra of the establishment of the Democratic Party is this belief in the fantasy, unicorn Republican whos willing to flip into the Democratic category just because a Democrat says some things that sound slightly more Republican, said Charles Chamberlain, the chair of Democracy for America. I mean, its just ridiculous.

Another runoff that has drawn the attention of some national progressives is the one for the 24th Congressional District, where Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela are competing to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell. The seat is a national Democratic target.

Valenzuela has endorsements like the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Warren, but the runoff has not as sharply split along ideological lines as much as it has on issues of experience and racial identity. Valenzuela, a former Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member, and her allies are hammering Olson over her time as human resources director for the Dallas Independent School District. Valenzuela and her supporters are also touting that she would be the first Afro-Latina to serve in Congress. Olson is white.

But the divide might be clearest in South Texas, where the winner of the state Senate runoff between Lucio and Barrera will be the overwhelming favorite to win the seat in November.

Barreras allies are blasting Lucios Senate voting record, which they say is out of touch with the districts young, progressive voices. Theyve also accused him of being too cozy with Republicans. Campaign finance reports released this week show some of the biggest GOP donors in Texas, including Dallas oilman Ray Hunt, Dallas pipeline tycoon Kelcy Warren and Houston real estate developer Richard Weekly, pitched in to support his reelection bid.

Lucio, a conservative Democrat, has long split with his party on issues like abortion, and has cast votes that were controversial within his party in recent years on school choice and the 2017 bathroom bill that would have restricted transgender Texans access to certain public facilities. He was first elected to the Texas Senate 30 years ago and has touted his seniority, experience and local ties.

People are and vote moderate because they are afraid, Barrera said. Im not a fan of the moderate route. If youre going to do it, go big and bold to make some real change.

But so far this year, Texas Democrats have largely stuck with known commodities. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, one of the most moderate House Democrats, fended off Cisneros, who was backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Tzintzn Ramirez finished third behind Dallas state Sen. Royce West and Air Force veteran MJ Hegar. (Tzintzn Ramirez quickly endorsed West, and some of the groups that supported her have since backed West as well. While few consider him as progressive as Tzintzn Ramirez, they see him as the superior choice to Hegar, whose party credentials have come under new scrutiny in the home stretch of the runoff.)

Those results have frustrated progressive groups, angry that while their policies such as tough action on climate change, student debt cancellation and single-payer health care poll high among Democratic voters nationally, their candidates often still fall short.

The disconnect emphasizes a fundamental schism among Democrats and has caused progressive groups, albeit privately, to divide blame between the candidates they backed and an electorate that has prioritized fear of another four years of President Donald Trump above all else.

But there is still cause for optimism among some on the left, given that issues once considered fringe are now popular.

Biden, for example, has embraced Warrens bankruptcy plan and a proposal from Sanders to make public college free for some students. At the local level, several city councils in Texas more liberal cities have seriously considered or adopted proposals to decrease police budgets or to mandate a reduction in police force against civilians. And in Texas, former presidential candidate Julin Castro recently launched a new political action committee, People First Future, that aims to invest in progressive candidates up and down the ballot nationwide. Hes already endorsed at least seven Texas congressional candidates.

The progressive movement is just getting started here in Texas, Siegel said.

I think all Democratic candidates are more progressive now than they were two to four years ago, and that demonstrates the success of the progressive movement, added Garza.

I think we have a lot to hold our head up high about.

Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.

See the rest here:
Texas progressives have hope for July runoff elections - The Texas Tribune

While some progressives are bullish about the outlook for the November election, Tatenda Musapatike surveys the political landscape and sees masses of unregistered voters who were supposed to be on the rolls by now, but for the pandemic.

It is making her increasingly anxious, and she is not alone.

It is hard to overstate just how underwater voter registration is, said Musapatike, senior director of campaigns at Acronym, a progressive group focused on digital strategy.

Democrats and Republicans alike are struggling to confront a simmering crisis that could hurt either or both of them in assorted contests this fall. Yet the stakes are particularly high for the left, which is relying heavily on mobilizing the sorts of people who often dont vote to help oust President Trump.

The numbers of new voters added to the rolls lately are way below where progressives want and need them to be. Voter registration is yet another casualty of the pandemic, which in this case tore apart carefully laid plans for mass mobilization through door-to-door drives signing people up.

After a lot of talk about progressive groups being well-equipped to shift their efforts online, the reality has so far proven more complicated. Many tactics Democrats rely on to lure potential voters are older even than the partys septuagenarian presidential candidate. The messaging is stale, the targeting out-of-touch and the infrastructure not entirely compatible with the digital age.

That has operatives like Musapatike working at a breakneck pace to innovate, desperately trying to bring cultural relevance and technological competence to the anachronistic American ritual of voter-registration drives. While money from big donors is flowing their way, they are confronting headwinds as some party leaders question how much to invest in experimentation.

We know what has worked in the past, Musapatike said. But we havent expanded our learning. Big ideas need to be explored. The $11-million effort she is spearheading, under the brand Peoples Power Grab, aims to talk to groups such as young Black and Latino Americans on platforms including TikTok and Instagram, with the kind of culturally resonant content that e-commerce marketers tapped into long ago.

One video has a stylish Black woman swiping through a dating app and checking out the playful profile of another user, only to balk when it reveals hes a nonvoter. Viewers of the video can then tap on a link that brings them to a page where they can register easily. It is supported by pioneering technology that simplifies the process and enables organizers to track the registration status and engage with the new voter through election day.

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Jesse Horwitz, an e-commerce entrepreneur, has been pushing Democrats to embrace just that kind of campaign, with limited success. Before the pandemic, he ran a voter-registration pilot program that experimented with e-commerce targeting tactics and user-driven content that has served corporate America well. Horwitz said he enlisted voters to register at a fraction of the price of traditional models, which often cost more than $100 for each registration.

While he offered his blueprint free to organizations spending big to register Democrats, its mostly been collecting dust. Its befuddling to me, Horwitz said.

A voter registration recital at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.

(Associated Press)

The groups that have experimented outside the box are seeing some big successes. Voto Latino, a 15-year-old, digitally-oriented organization focused on spurring the Latino vote, saw its unconventional tactics rewarded with an explosion of interest amid the recent racial justice protests. More than 98,000 people registered through its platform in June, a nearly ten-fold increase over May, which was already a decent month for new registrants.

After the 2018 midterm election, half of the countrys voting-eligible Latinos reported they never got contacted by anyone about their registration status or plans to vote, according to Voto Latino. There is this stigma in the establishment that Latinx people dont come out and vote, said Danny Turkel, the groups communications director. Democrats must invest in contacting them and speaking their language, which is not Spanish but the way they communicate in their everyday lives.

Rock the Vote has also seen a surge in registrations lately, attracting college-age voters with events headlined by celebrities and influencers. When We All Vote, a new organization co-chaired by Michelle Obama and stars including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Janelle Monae, has mobilized tens of thousands of young voters by seizing on what is trending and on the energy of the current protests.

When #couchparty started trending on Twitter signifying the popularity of DJ D-Nices online tunes-spinning for people stuck at home the group pounced, launching its own virtual couch parties with him. The wildly successful events featured both music and talk to recruit those participating to vote, and to get their friends registered, too.

We knew it was important for people to talk about voting in a way that reaches people, not about doing this in some politically correct way, said Stephanie L. Young, a managing director of the group.

For all such efforts, the voter-registration decline triggered by states stay-at-home orders persists. Not even 200,000 people were registered in May, compared with nearly 1.5 million in May of 2016, according to the Democratic data analysis firm TargetSmart.

Those early numbers also showed people of color and voters under 40 making up a smaller share of new voters in April and May than previously. That gap, analysts at TargetSmart say, may have closed in June, when nationwide anti-racism protests ignited the interest reflected in the numbers posted by groups like Voto Latino and When We all Vote.

Yet many progressives are alarmed. They have been furiously trying to upgrade technology to navigate states balky registration systems, to help volunteers easily find who isnt registered, and then get them on the rolls more simply.

Outvote is a startup that seeks to enable activists to enlist people in their social networks to register and vote. It is unfortunately very complicated to vote in this country, said its founder, Naseem Makiya. Our app helps you see which forks they are stuck at, and make sure they move to the next step.

The firm Civitech is arming progressive groups and community activists with technology that uses Google Maps to create a real-time digital map of every unregistered voter. Neighbors, for example, can see who in their community is not on the rolls and then reach out to them.

A hospital in Philadelphia adopted every block within a one-mile radius, urging residents to send in their applications for vote-by-mail ballots, with a tongue-in-cheek note about not wanting to see them at intake with COVID-19 contracted during in-person voting.

Building this 10 years ago would have been impossible, said firm co-founder Jeremy Smith, crediting Google and Amazon mapping applications. There are a lot of people who would vote if you bothered to ask them.

His technology enables even citizen activists to engage in sophisticated microtargeting. It can, for example, find the seven Latinos who are unregistered in one particular neighborhood in Riverside. Or it can more broadly give organizers a view of where in a county Black residents are registering at high rates, and where there is work to be done. After potential voters are reached by cell phones, organizations can arrange to send them registration forms with prepaid postage, or walk them through online registration, where available.

But states and counties constantly shifting registration rules are a persistent challenge. Only two states Pennsylvania and Virginia accept voter-registration applications submitted through sites like Peoples Power Grab. Everywhere else, the information needs to be routed onto a state-sanctioned form.

And the hurdles some states have created to getting a vote-by-mail ballot are adding to the challenge, even as the pandemic pushes voting in that direction.

The rules are radically different state by state, said Emily Del Beccaro, a co-founder of OpenField, a digital organizing firm that shifted its strategy to focus on enabling activists to register voters remotely. Wisconsin, she said, has no single place voters send their vote-by-mail application. Hundreds of voting offices process them, and the voter must find the office for their area, making automation tough for organizations aiming to register thousands of voters a day.

All these organizations have been having to build new systems from scratch, Del Beccaro said. It is incredibly complicated.

More here:
Progressives try to reinvent the registration drive amid a pandemic - Los Angeles Times

Supreme Court Voter Board members, Opinion contributors Published 3:15 a.m. ET July 10, 2020

We don't agree on everything, but we agree progressives must unite to fight for control of the court. Otherwise, everything we care about is at risk.

Republicans control the Supreme Court today because they fought for it by any means necessary. From the founding of The Federalist Society in 1982, conservative special interests have relentlessly pursued control of the judicial branch. Their strategy culminated in 2016 when, with a Supreme Court seat vacant following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Republican senators fell in line behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnells plan to deny President Barack Obama the opportunity to fill it.

Throughout, Republicans and conservatives worked to bring conservative activists and voters into the fight. During the 2016 campaign, Republicans talked constantly about how important the nation's high court is. Candidate Donald Trump even broke with tradition to announce a list of potential nominees, mobilizing and unifying conservative voters.

As progressives, we need to admit that the broad Democratic coalition including progressive activists did not do enough to stop Republicans from stealing that seat and, with it, control of the court.The Supreme Court was low-profile in most progressive and Democratic messaging in 2016 especially compared withthe drumbeat from the right. And, ultimately,Trump won voters who considered the Supreme Court the most important factor in their vote by 15 points.

As a result of Senate Republicans stonewalling of President Obama and changing Senate rules to confirm President Trumps nominee, five Republican-appointed justices control the Supreme Court today. The consequences have been disastrous. They haverubber-stamped many of President Trumps most dangerous policies from his Muslim travelban to his transgender military banto his attacks on affordable birth control. And they have damaged our democracy, greenlighting partisan gerrymandering and forcing Wisconsinites to choose between practicing safe social distancing and exercising their right to vote.

While this term brought some welcome victories for progressives, the narrow nature of those decisions and Justice Brett Kavanaughs appalling votes only go to show that the future of the Supreme Court is on the line right now, and that the dangers of Trump appointing more justices are profound.

The Supreme Court on July 6, 2020, in Washington, D.C.(Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)

Progressives continue to ignore the Supreme Court at their peril. This year can, and must, be different.

We do not agree on everything. We supported different candidates in both the 2016 and the 2020 presidential primary. We have devoted our careers to working on different sets of issues and we have different visions for how the progressive movement and Democratic Party should move forward. But we are absolutely united on this: Progressives must, and can, unite around fighting for control of the Supreme Court.

Undercutting confidence: Trump and Barr are making false claims about mail-in ballots to scare us out of voting

Without action, everything we care about is at risk. Republicans have long turned to the Supreme Court to enact their deeply unpopular agenda: repealing affordable health care, undoing commonsense gun violence prevention measures, tilting the law in favor of corporations and the wealthy, making it harder for workers to organize, undercutting the fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body and reproduction, and weakening civil rights protections. If Trump is able to appoint more Supreme Court justices, he will cement a right-wing majority that will enact a partisan, Republican agenda from the bench for decades to come.

We think the moment has arrived when progressives are ready to fight back. While Trumps hijacking of our courts has done enormous damage, it has also spurred those of us who oppose his agenda to mobilize around our judiciary. The Kavanaugh confirmation battle showed us all just how far Republicans are willing to go to entrench their Supreme Court majority and the courts unjust recent opinions have shown how damaging their campaign is to everything we care about. Progressives are fed up with a court that undermines democracy and civil rights, threatens access to health careand favors the rich and the powerful above everyone else.

Fortunately, most Americans agree with us. Theyoppose the Trump-backed lawsuit asking the court to overturn the Affordable Care Act and attacks on our democracy such as partisan gerrymandering and the court'sCitizens United decision. We should take a page out of the conservative playbook by making sure our friends and neighbors know every time the court turns on them.

2020 election: Supreme Court 'faithless electors' ruling aims to stabilize the election, but will it work?

With the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy looming and the balance of the court on the line,the coming months could determine our countrys future for generations. This is our chance to send a message that we will not allow our children to grow up in an America where people like Brett Kavanaugh control an entire branch of government. We plan on taking it.

The authors are members of the advisory board of Supreme Court Voter:

Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy

Ady Barkan, co-founder of Be a Hero

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, physician and progressive activist

Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice

Anna Galland, former executive director of MoveOn

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America

Mara Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino

Jen Psaki, former White House communications director

Jess Morales Rocketto, executive director of Care in Action and civic engagementdirector of the National Domestic Workers Alliance

Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats

Maya Rupert, progressive strategist and writer

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers

Click here to follow them on Twitter.

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Trump and conservatives hijacked the Supreme Court. We're progressives ready to fight back. - USA TODAY

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders take part in a Democratic primary debate on March 15. After Biden wrapped up the presidential nomination, the two formed joint task forces to formulate policy recommendations on six big issues. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders take part in a Democratic primary debate on March 15. After Biden wrapped up the presidential nomination, the two formed joint task forces to formulate policy recommendations on six big issues.

A joint effort by former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to unify Democrats around Biden's candidacy has produced a 110-page policy wish list to recommend to the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Throughout the Democratic primary, Biden stuck to a more moderate platform, while Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and much of the rest of the crowded field courted progressives and advocated for broader structural changes. But as the United States faces a growing pandemic and unemployment rates at the highest levels in generations, Biden has been talking more and more about a presidency that approaches Franklin Delano Roosevelt's, with bold progressive ambitions.

The policy document the work of six joint task forces appointed by Biden and Sanders in May would give the former vice president a road map to that goal.

"The goals of the task force were to move the Biden campaign into as progressive a direction as possible, and I think we did that," Sanders told NPR. "On issue after issue, whether it was education, the economy, health care, climate, immigration, criminal justice, I think there was significant movement on the part of the Biden campaign."

The document recommends that Biden commit to eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 and to zeroing out net greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy by 2050. The task forces call for funding universal prekindergarten across the country, expanding Social Security, raising the national minimum wage and eliminating cash bail, among many other long-sought progressive stances.

"I don't think you could find any issue that we couldn't find an agreeable resolution on, that everybody in the room said, 'That will work,' " said Jared Bernstein, Biden's former economic adviser in the Obama administration and a task force member. "I don't think you could find anything in there that he won't want to take a very close look at."

"I commend the Task Forces for their service and helping build a bold, transformative platform for our party and for our country," Biden said in a statement on Wednesday. "And I am deeply grateful to Senator Sanders for working together to unite our party, and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come."

Biden's campaign has yet to publicly commit to doing anything other than "reviewing" the recommendations.

If he adopted them, the recommendations would shift Biden to the left, but they would not completely transform the platform he has been running on for more than a year.

"We did not have any impressions that we were going to turn Joe Biden into Bernie Sanders. That was not going to happen. That did not happen," said Faiz Shakir, who managed Sanders' presidential campaign and helped coordinate the task forces.

Where the health care task force landed

The health care recommendations illustrate that point best.

Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal co-chaired the health care task force. She has long pushed, like Sanders, for a single, government-run health insurance program but didn't bring that recommendation to the table in any of the meetings or negotiations.

"Obviously our candidate who is pushing for 'Medicare for All' did not win," she told NPR. "There was a lot that Biden had already said on health care, which somewhat limited our ability to perhaps get as much as we wanted to get."

Still, Jayapal was happy with the recommendations, which include expanding the benefits and lowering the costs of the public health insurance program Biden wants to add to the Affordable Care Act, as well as insisting that Medicare, not any private health insurance company, would administer the plan.

The task force also called on Biden to pursue requiring employers to offer employees the option to sign up for government-administered health care, rather than company plans.

Jayapal thinks the report can help sell onetime Sanders-backers on Biden.

"I feel like I can go and legitimately sell this as something that the movement achieved, something that we were able to do that pushed Vice President Biden further than he has been and solidified the need for universal, high-quality, low-cost coverage for everybody provided through public providers, not private insurance companies," she said.

The leftward shift of the policy recommendations could provide more fodder for President Trump, who has tried, at times, to paint his Democratic challenger as "a helpless puppet of the radical left."

Courting progressives might not be as essential for Biden as most Democrats once expected it to be. Poll after poll shows Biden with a double-digit national lead over Trump and several swing states moving toward the Democratic column.

Still, even as he cleared the presidential field faster than any Democrat in decades, party members have remained less excited and fired up about his candidacy and more motivated by the idea of defeating Trump.

Sanders hopes this document will get more progressives excited about the goals, not just the existence, of a Biden administration. "When I talked to Joe a while back, he said that he wants to be the most progressive president since FDR," Sanders said. "Do I believe that Biden believes that now is the time for bold action to protect the working class and lower-income people in this country? Yes, I do believe that's the case."

Originally posted here:
Biden And Sanders Release Their Joint Policy Recommendations - NPR

Last month, a wave of progressive candidates surged in New York states primary, ousting longtime Democratic incumbents in the House of Representatives, the state legislature, and local offices.

Tuesday, the opposite happened on the other side of the Hudson River.

In Hudson Countys primary races, a slate of progressive candidates floundered. Preliminary election results showed left-wing candidates for Senate, House, and county Freeholder seats trailing far behind incumbent Democrats, raising questions about the viability of a progressive movement in the county.

We did have a lot of momentum, but I think it is just highlighting how big of an advantage the party line is in New Jersey primaries, said Eleana Little, who challenged the party-backed Yraida Aponte-Lipski in the race for Fourth District Freeholder. Even a well-organized slate of progressive challengers has difficulty overcoming the structural advantages of the party line in the primary.

The Hudson County Board of Elections has tallied roughly one third of Hudsons mail-in ballots. Officials originally hoped to release data from 50,000 to 60,000 ballots by 8 p.m. Tuesday, but county Elections Clerk Michael Harper said the flood of mail-in ballots slowed down the counting process. Election workers counted only about 20,000 by the end of the night.

Were still here plugging away, Harper said Wednesday. Im still in the same clothes.

Harper said he doesnt expect the results, which he called a good sampling, to change dramatically, but he admitted that anything is possible.

But as the Hudson County Democratic Organizations candidates declared victory, progressives saw their hopes for a takeover dashed.

As a progressive and as a challenger, youre fighting an uphill battle, said Hector Oseguera, who mounted a primary challenge for the House of Representatives seat in New Jerseys 8th district. Tuesday nights results showed Oseguera behind incumbent Albio Sires by a three-to-one margin.

Other progressives fared similarly. In contested Freeholder races, challengers attracted just a fraction of the votes, far behind incumbents and HCDO-backed candidates. In the closest race, the Hudson County Democratic Organization-backed Freeholder Aponte-Lipski led Little by roughly 20 percentage points.

Little and Oseguera both acknowledged that outsider candidates were up against significant odds. Outsiders face well-funded opponents, often with better name recognition and a bundle of high-profile endorsements. And both singled out the party line, which arranges ballots so that local HCDO candidates are grouped with Joe Biden, as a major disadvantage.

Hudson County is a very progressive place, Oseguera said. I do think that there is a lot of viability for progressive challengers, if they have an even playing field to fight on.

But Amy DeGise, the chairwoman of the Hudson County Democratic Party, said the line was definitely not insurmountable.

I dont even see how you can call it that much of an advantage, she said. Because in the same token youre calling voters dumb, and saying that theyre not going to be able to look around the ballot and locate names. So I think its insulting to voters and people who have contributed to the democratic process and are engaged.

The HCDO welcomed challenges from the left, DeGise added.

Having the opponents that we did gave us an opportunity to highlight what were doing right and what we can work on, she said. DeGise said she was hopeful that the two wings of the Democratic party could come together in November.

Theyre our fellow Dems, DeGise said. Im really optimistic that we can all come together, even though (they) were opponents prior to the primary, that were all on the same team going forward to elect a Democrat into the White House.

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After primary rout, what is the future of the progressive movement in Hudson County? - nj.com