theintercept--2020-03-01--The Far Right Loves to Hate Sanders Surrogate Linda Sarsour, and She “Has the Wounds to Prove It”

, the night Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary , Linda Sarsour was in Queens , New York , vying on his behalf for an endorsement from the Muslim Democratic Club of New York — a small subset of the American Muslim community , among which Sanders is the most popular presidential candidate .
Sarsour , a Sanders campaign surrogate and executive director of Muslim social justice group MPower Change , was speaking to club membership on home turf .
She co-founded the organization , New York ’ s first Muslim political club , in 2013 , and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But she didn ’ t take the club ’ s endorsement for granted .
“ Bernie Sanders is the candidate for the Muslim American community , ” Sarsour told the crowd during her five-minute spiel .
“ Bernie Sanders is the most consistent anti-war candidate in this campaign .
He voted against the war in Iraq .
He voted against the Patriot Act , which is a policy that allows unwarranted surveillance of our communities and takes our civil liberties away.
” Sanders , who was only competing against Sen. Elizabeth Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , swept the vote .
It was a minor victory for Sarsour , but she ’ s hoping a series of similar endorsements for Sanders across the country will add up to a big wave of Muslim groups backing the senator , giving him a boost to win states with sizable Muslim populations .
Soon , Sarsour , one of the most prominent Palestinian-American Muslims in the country , was on to the next thing .
As a volunteer for the campaign , Sarsour is talking to Muslim community leaders nationally about why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , rallying the Sanders faithful at campaign events , encouraging people to join phone banks for Sanders , and publishing a steady stream of pro-Sanders commentary on her Facebook ( 216,000 followers ) and Twitter ( 313,000 followers ) pages .
As a loud advocate for Palestinian rights and an unabashedly Muslim activist at a time when U.S. policy mirrors the Israeli government ’ s positions and anti-Muslim bigotry is largely tolerated , Sarsour is a lightning rod for bad-faith attacks .
Right-wing voices who use Sarsour ’ s every criticism of Israel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an anti-Semite are pressuring the Sanders campaign to drop her as a surrogate , in only the latest example of the torrent of abuse she faces .
She explores her place at the center of so many contradictions of U.S. political life in her new memoir , “ We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders : A Memoir of Love and Resistance , ” due to be released on March 3 .
In the fast-paced account of her rise from daughter of Palestinian immigrants to confident leader at the top of the social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal story in service of her larger political goals .
She uses the experience of seeing black students at her Brooklyn high school go through metal detectors , for example , as an entry point into discussing the pervasiveness of racism is in the U.S. , the school-to-prison pipeline , and why she ’ s committed to building multiracial coalitions for change .
In the memoir and in a recent interview with The Intercept , Sarsour expresses some vulnerability .
Still , she remains deeply guarded over some aspects of her personal life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few years .
In her memoir , she skips over the root causes of her exit from the Women ’ s March , the organization she co-led until just a few months ago .
She makes scant references to her husband , and despite sharing some parenting anecdotes in the book , she showed little interest in answering questions about her three children — an understandable impulse from someone whose family has been hounded by the right-wing press .
“ I am one of those Palestinian Americans that has the wounds to prove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scarred .
I ’ ve taken a lot of hits over the last few years , but I feel more hopeful than ever , ” she said in the interview .
“ It seems bleak when you think about what ’ s happening in Palestine and Gaza .
But I think from a political perspective in the United States of America , there has been great progress.
” seemed to be everywhere at once over the past few years , fundraising for Muslim and progressive activism around the country , rallying for Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s March , the group that spearheaded the largest single-day demonstration in American history following President Donald Trump ’ s inauguration .
But she got her start on a smaller stage .
Just a few months after the September 11 attacks , she began her local activism career when she joined the Arab-American Association of New York , working under her father ’ s cousin , Basemah Atweh , who had started the organization .
Four years later , as the post-9/11 surveillance state bore down on Muslim New Yorkers with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work all the more important , a tragedy hit .
In May 2005 , Sarsour was driving Atweh and three others late at night when a tractor-trailer drove toward her , forcing Sarsour to get out of the way and drive off the road , in the process flipping over , going down a steep slope , and spinning the car around .
Atweh died from internal bleeding , but Sarsour survived with only a few minor cuts .
When Sarsour returned to work at the AAANY offices a few days after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this work for Basemah because this is all she ever wanted , ” she recalls in her memoir .
By the fall , at the age of 25 , AAANY ’ s board appointed her as the new executive director .
In her 11-year tenure , Sarsour oversaw a team that registered Arab voters in New York , helped families navigate the immigration system , and successfully lobbied the New York Department of Education to give public school students off for major Muslim holidays .
She also helped forge a multiracial coalition to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s excesses , work that became especially important to New York Muslim activists after the Associated Press revealed that the NYPD had been spying on Northeast Muslims since the September 11 attacks .
( I once spoke on a panel with Sarsour about Islamophobia , Israel , and New York City politics , and my name is listed as an adviser , alongside Sarsour , to a group called Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism . )
Sarsour ’ s charisma , relationship-building with local politicians , and show-up-to-everything attitude endeared her to many progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rush to defend her after local politicians targeted her over Sarsour ’ s criticism of Israel .
“ She ’ s a hero to a good number of people , especially to young women , ” said Shahana Masum , a Sanders delegate in New York and community outreach liaison for the Muslim community group Muslim Sisters of Staten Island .
“ No other Muslim women talks like she does .
She ’ s fearless .
And she ’ s a person that has reached a level that many Muslims don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The admiration for Sarsour is not universal .
Some Muslim community activists in New York say she is more focused on her brand and getting media attention than doing the hard work of organizing or mentoring other activists .
Sarsour rejects this line of criticism and says it stems from being a brash woman in a patriarchal society .
“ I am the person that stands on the street corner to register voters .
I am the person that gathers petitions , ” she said .
“ I ’ m always uplifting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has sometimes struggled to balance her activism with her family life , she admits in her memoir .
She recalls the time her son posted the news of his college acceptance on Facebook without telling her first .
She was in Washington , D.C. , planning the Women ’ s March , and she broke down crying .
“ [ I was ] distressed that my child did not understand that no matter what I was doing , he and his sisters came first for me , ” she writes .
But even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her family life , there ’ s only so much Sarsour is willing to share .
When I started to ask about her kids , she told me that two are in college and one is in high school , and with a smile said , “ That ’ s all the demographic information you ’ re getting.
” It ’ s a natural response for a mother who is constantly on the receiving end of death threats .
( In August , Sarsour revealed that the FBI had told her that Cesar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporter arrested and convicted for sending pipe bombs to prominent Democratic politicians , had her name on a list of people to target . )
She is willing to bear the costs of her activism , but as a mother of three , there ’ s more than her own life at stake .
“ The impact on my family is more troublesome , ” she said .
“ When my cellphone rings and [ my kids ] see an unknown number , they say , ‘ Who is that ?
Who do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Sarsour reached its peak in early 2017 , after she helped lead the Women ’ s March rally .
Addressing a crowd of thousands of people , she said , to cheers , that she “ stands here before you … unapologetically Palestinian American.
” What followed was a string of attacks on Sarsour from commentators on Fox News and articles in Breitbart and the right-wing Jewish press .
Many of the articles focused on Sarsour ’ s penchant for tweeting out harsh attacks on her political opponents .
The right went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : one , written in 2011 , in which Sarsour says she wishes she could “ take ” two anti-Muslim activists ’ vaginas away , and another written in 2012 , where Sarsour said that “ nothing is creepier than Zionism , ” alongside a YouTube video of Remi Kanazi , a Palestinian American poet .
( Sarsour said she regrets how she worded the tweet about vaginas .
As for the Zionism tweet , she said she did not write the message herself but copied the prewritten tweet from an email sent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
“ We all have our faults .
Sometimes she ’ s a little careless , sometimes she ’ s a little imprecise , and she ’ s paid the price for that dearly , ” said Moustafa Bayoumi , a Brooklyn College professor whose writing focuses on Muslim Americans .
In liberal spaces , the kinds of attacks that focused on stray tweets didn ’ t have much impact .
But what did blossom into a full-blown crisis for Sarsour and the Women ’ s March centered on Louis Farrakhan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ makes anti-Semitic remarks .
Tamika Mallory , a co-chair of the Women ’ s March , had long been close to the Nation of Islam .
Critics used her attendance at a February 2018 Nation of Islam event as cover to claim the Women ’ s March as a whole was tolerant of anti-Semitism within its ranks , also citing Sarsour ’ s anti-Zionist positions .
They wanted to see Mallory and Sarsour gone .
The Women ’ s March succumbed to those external pressures .
Sarsour and Mallory stepped down from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after their board terms expired , they said .
“ Things could have been done differently .
But I hate that that ’ s become the story of the march .
There was an incredibly effective campaign to utilize real issues of anti-Semitism , and inflated and even manufactured issues of anti-Semitism , to attack the progressive movement and leaders of color , ” said Sophie Ellman-Golan , a prominent Jewish activist who helped organize the Women ’ s March .
In the same week Sarsour ’ s departure was announced , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ board members .
Among them was Zahra Billoo , executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations chapter in San Francisco .
Almost immediately , critics brought to light old tweets of Billoo ’ s in which , in 2018 , she harshly criticized Israel by comparing it to the Islamic State and in 2010 said notions that Israel was “ defending itself ” were akin to saying that Nazi Germany defended itself from Jewish resistance .
( Looking back , Billoo said she could have worded the tweets differently . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ days later , she was gone .
The Women ’ s March , apparently , had learned the wrong lessons from its experiences with Sarsour , she said .
“ We had been targeted for three years consistently at the Women ’ s March , with lies , media requests by right-wing media , and still forged forward and did the work , ” Sarsour said .
“ The new board caved to pressure within 24 hours and could have showed the kind of solidarity we were preaching and teaching over the years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attorney and was treated unfairly.
” social movement work Sarsour is engaged in fits right in with the political priorities of the larger Muslim American community .
A 2017 poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that 66 percent of Muslims in the U.S. supported the Black Lives Matter movement — higher than any other religious group .
“ Muslims ’ progress is inextricably connected to other communities , ” said Dalia Mogahed , director of research at ISPU .
“ People who endorse anti-Muslim stereotypes are much more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans and Jews .
And so [ coalition-building is ] really understandable .
Beyond just being morally correct , it ’ s strategic to be building coalitions across these communities.
” The activism of Sarsour , and the broader Muslim American community , goes beyond racial justice , though .
Sarsour has courted controversy , and risen to the top of her community , in large part because of her outspokenness on Palestinian rights in recent years .
She is harshly critical of Israel ’ s human rights abuses , is a supporter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jews and Palestinians live equally , doesn ’ t believe a two-state solution is possible , and supports the boycott , divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel .
For those reasons , pro-Israel groups have repeatedly called for the Sanders campaign to drop Sarsour as a surrogate .
The calls are an attempt to exploit the gap between Sarsour ’ s positions — which are not mainstream views but are increasingly invoked on the left — and Sanders ’ s more moderate stances .
He does not support BDS and favors a two-state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most criticism of Israeli policy in the 2020 primary .
“ Bernie doesn ’ t agree with me on everything .
And I don ’ t agree with Bernie on everything on that particular issue , ” Sarsour said .
“ But I see Bernie as someone who listens .
And for the first time in at least my lifetime — and even I would say since my father has come to this country 45 years ago — we have a presidential candidate who is invoking the Palestinian plight on such a high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no sign that it will drop Sarsour , disappointing groups like Democratic Majority for Israel , the AIPAC-linked group that has repeatedly complained about Sarsour to the Sanders camp .
That kind of loyalty has energized Muslim American activists .
“ As a Palestinian Muslim woman of color , that sends a message that Bernie Sanders and his future administration isn ’ t going to leave any community behind , ” said Rasha Mubarak , a Sanders supporter , friend of Sarsour ’ s , and Florida community leader .
“ It sends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inclusive and talking about the very real occupation of the Palestinian people.
” Even after Sarsour stirred controversy with her remarks at an American Muslims for Palestine conference that Israel was built on the idea of Jewish supremacy — she later clarified that she meant to refer to Israel ’ s nation-state law , which enshrines Israel ’ s status as a Jewish state , while saying nothing about Palestinian rights and downgrading the official status of Arabic — the Sanders campaign didn ’ t blink .
“ I ’ ve never been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever told me what to say , when to say , not to say it , ” said Sarsour .
The Sanders campaign must know , after all , that Linda Sarsour can not be silenced .

On February 11 , the night Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, Linda Sarsour was in Queens, New York, vying on his behalf for an endorsement from the Muslim Democratic Club of New York — a small subset of the American Muslim community, among which Sanders is the most popular presidential candidate.
Sarsour, a Sanders campaign surrogate and executive director of Muslim social justice group MPower Change, was speaking to club membership on home turf. She co-founded the organization, New York’s first Muslim political club, in 2013, and is a star in New York Muslim circles. But she didn’t take the club’s endorsement for granted.
“Bernie Sanders is the candidate for the Muslim American community,” Sarsour told the crowd during her five-minute spiel. “Bernie Sanders is the most consistent anti-war candidate in this campaign. He voted against the war in Iraq. He voted against the Patriot Act, which is a policy that allows unwarranted surveillance of our communities and takes our civil liberties away.”
Sanders, who was only competing against Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the small group’s endorsement, swept the vote. It was a minor victory for Sarsour, but she’s hoping a series of similar endorsements for Sanders across the country will add up to a big wave of Muslim groups backing the senator, giving him a boost to win states with sizable Muslim populations.
Left/Top: Sarsour hugs Arianna Khan, 7, at a Muslim Democratic Club of New York meeting. Right/Bottom: Sarsour applauds Iram Ali, a senior content strategist on Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's campaign, after she concluded her address seeking an endorsement from the Muslim Democratic Club of New York. Photos: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
Soon, Sarsour, one of the most prominent Palestinian-American Muslims in the country, was on to the next thing. As a volunteer for the campaign, Sarsour is talking to Muslim community leaders nationally about why he is the best choice for president, rallying the Sanders faithful at campaign events, encouraging people to join phone banks for Sanders, and publishing a steady stream of pro-Sanders commentary on her Facebook (216,000 followers) and Twitter (313,000 followers) pages.
As a loud advocate for Palestinian rights and an unabashedly Muslim activist at a time when U.S. policy mirrors the Israeli government’s positions and anti-Muslim bigotry is largely tolerated, Sarsour is a lightning rod for bad-faith attacks. Right-wing voices who use Sarsour’s every criticism of Israel as an opportunity to smear her as an anti-Semite are pressuring the Sanders campaign to drop her as a surrogate, in only the latest example of the torrent of abuse she faces.
She explores her place at the center of so many contradictions of U.S. political life in her new memoir, “We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance,” due to be released on March 3. In the fast-paced account of her rise from daughter of Palestinian immigrants to confident leader at the top of the social justice activist world, she deploys her personal story in service of her larger political goals. She uses the experience of seeing black students at her Brooklyn high school go through metal detectors, for example, as an entry point into discussing the pervasiveness of racism is in the U.S., the school-to-prison pipeline, and why she’s committed to building multiracial coalitions for change.
In the memoir and in a recent interview with The Intercept, Sarsour expresses some vulnerability. Still, she remains deeply guarded over some aspects of her personal life and the biggest controversies of the last few years. In her memoir, she skips over the root causes of her exit from the Women’s March, the organization she co-led until just a few months ago. She makes scant references to her husband, and despite sharing some parenting anecdotes in the book, she showed little interest in answering questions about her three children — an understandable impulse from someone whose family has been hounded by the right-wing press.
“I am one of those Palestinian Americans that has the wounds to prove it. I feel, like, scarred. I’ve taken a lot of hits over the last few years, but I feel more hopeful than ever,” she said in the interview. “It seems bleak when you think about what’s happening in Palestine and Gaza. But I think from a political perspective in the United States of America, there has been great progress.”
Sarsour, center, attends a meeting at the Muslim Democratic Club of New York in Queens. Photo: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
The 39-year-old Sarsour seemed to be everywhere at once over the past few years, fundraising for Muslim and progressive activism around the country, rallying for Sanders, and helping to lead the Women’s March, the group that spearheaded the largest single-day demonstration in American history following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
But she got her start on a smaller stage.
Just a few months after the September 11 attacks, she began her local activism career when she joined the Arab-American Association of New York, working under her father’s cousin, Basemah Atweh, who had started the organization.
Four years later, as the post-9/11 surveillance state bore down on Muslim New Yorkers with a disturbing zeal, making AAANY’s work all the more important, a tragedy hit. In May 2005, Sarsour was driving Atweh and three others late at night when a tractor-trailer drove toward her, forcing Sarsour to get out of the way and drive off the road, in the process flipping over, going down a steep slope, and spinning the car around. Atweh died from internal bleeding, but Sarsour survived with only a few minor cuts.
When Sarsour returned to work at the AAANY offices a few days after the accident, she vowed to “continue this work for Basemah because this is all she ever wanted,” she recalls in her memoir.
By the fall, at the age of 25, AAANY’s board appointed her as the new executive director. In her 11-year tenure, Sarsour oversaw a team that registered Arab voters in New York, helped families navigate the immigration system, and successfully lobbied the New York Department of Education to give public school students off for major Muslim holidays. She also helped forge a multiracial coalition to curb the New York Police Department’s excesses, work that became especially important to New York Muslim activists after the Associated Press revealed that the NYPD had been spying on Northeast Muslims since the September 11 attacks. (I once spoke on a panel with Sarsour about Islamophobia, Israel, and New York City politics, and my name is listed as an adviser, alongside Sarsour, to a group called Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism.)
Photo: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
Sarsour’s charisma, relationship-building with local politicians, and show-up-to-everything attitude endeared her to many progressive activists in New York, who would rush to defend her after local politicians targeted her over Sarsour’s criticism of Israel.
“She’s a hero to a good number of people, especially to young women,” said Shahana Masum, a Sanders delegate in New York and community outreach liaison for the Muslim community group Muslim Sisters of Staten Island. “No other Muslim women talks like she does. She’s fearless. And she’s a person that has reached a level that many Muslims don’t get the chance to get to.”
The admiration for Sarsour is not universal. Some Muslim community activists in New York say she is more focused on her brand and getting media attention than doing the hard work of organizing or mentoring other activists. Sarsour rejects this line of criticism and says it stems from being a brash woman in a patriarchal society. “I am the person that stands on the street corner to register voters. I am the person that gathers petitions,” she said. “I’m always uplifting the work of others around me.”
Sarsour has sometimes struggled to balance her activism with her family life, she admits in her memoir. She recalls the time her son posted the news of his college acceptance on Facebook without telling her first. She was in Washington, D.C., planning the Women’s March, and she broke down crying.
“[I was] distressed that my child did not understand that no matter what I was doing, he and his sisters came first for me,” she writes.
But even after bringing attention to some aspect of her family life, there’s only so much Sarsour is willing to share. When I started to ask about her kids, she told me that two are in college and one is in high school, and with a smile said, “That’s all the demographic information you’re getting.”
It’s a natural response for a mother who is constantly on the receiving end of death threats. (In August, Sarsour revealed that the FBI had told her that Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man and Trump supporter arrested and convicted for sending pipe bombs to prominent Democratic politicians, had her name on a list of people to target.) She is willing to bear the costs of her activism, but as a mother of three, there’s more than her own life at stake.
“The impact on my family is more troublesome,” she said. “When my cellphone rings and [my kids] see an unknown number, they say, ‘Who is that? Who do you think that is?’”
Sarsour at the Muslim Democratic Club, New York’s first Muslim political club, which she co-founded. Photo: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
The right-wing barrage against Sarsour reached its peak in early 2017, after she helped lead the Women’s March rally. Addressing a crowd of thousands of people, she said, to cheers, that she “stands here before you … unapologetically Palestinian American.”
What followed was a string of attacks on Sarsour from commentators on Fox News and articles in Breitbart and the right-wing Jewish press. Many of the articles focused on Sarsour’s penchant for tweeting out harsh attacks on her political opponents. The right went after Sarsour for two tweets in particular: one, written in 2011, in which Sarsour says she wishes she could “take” two anti-Muslim activists’ vaginas away, and another written in 2012, where Sarsour said that “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” alongside a YouTube video of Remi Kanazi, a Palestinian American poet. (Sarsour said she regrets how she worded the tweet about vaginas. As for the Zionism tweet, she said she did not write the message herself but copied the prewritten tweet from an email sent around to promote Kanazi’s video.)
“We all have our faults. Sometimes she’s a little careless, sometimes she’s a little imprecise, and she’s paid the price for that dearly,” said Moustafa Bayoumi, a Brooklyn College professor whose writing focuses on Muslim Americans.
In liberal spaces, the kinds of attacks that focused on stray tweets didn’t have much impact. But what did blossom into a full-blown crisis for Sarsour and the Women’s March centered on Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who frequently makes anti-Semitic remarks. Tamika Mallory, a co-chair of the Women’s March, had long been close to the Nation of Islam. Critics used her attendance at a February 2018 Nation of Islam event as cover to claim the Women’s March as a whole was tolerant of anti-Semitism within its ranks, also citing Sarsour’s anti-Zionist positions. They wanted to see Mallory and Sarsour gone.
The Women’s March succumbed to those external pressures. Sarsour and Mallory stepped down from the group’s board in 2019, after their board terms expired, they said.
“Things could have been done differently. But I hate that that’s become the story of the march. There was an incredibly effective campaign to utilize real issues of anti-Semitism, and inflated and even manufactured issues of anti-Semitism, to attack the progressive movement and leaders of color,” said Sophie Ellman-Golan, a prominent Jewish activist who helped organize the Women’s March.
In the same week Sarsour’s departure was announced, the Women’s March named its new board members. Among them was Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations chapter in San Francisco. Almost immediately, critics brought to light old tweets of Billoo’s in which, in 2018, she harshly criticized Israel by comparing it to the Islamic State and in 2010 said notions that Israel was “defending itself” were akin to saying that Nazi Germany defended itself from Jewish resistance. (Looking back, Billoo said she could have worded the tweets differently.) Pro-Israel groups demanded her ouster. Two days later, she was gone.
The Women’s March, apparently, had learned the wrong lessons from its experiences with Sarsour, she said.
“We had been targeted for three years consistently at the Women’s March, with lies, media requests by right-wing media, and still forged forward and did the work,” Sarsour said. “The new board caved to pressure within 24 hours and could have showed the kind of solidarity we were preaching and teaching over the years. Zahra is a brilliant leader and attorney and was treated unfairly.”
“I see Bernie as someone who listens,” said Sarsour. “And for the first time in at least my lifetime — and even I would say since my father has come to this country 45 years ago — we have a presidential candidate who is invoking the Palestinian plight on such a high level.” Photo: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
The kind of social movement work Sarsour is engaged in fits right in with the political priorities of the larger Muslim American community. A 2017 poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that 66 percent of Muslims in the U.S. supported the Black Lives Matter movement — higher than any other religious group.
“Muslims’ progress is inextricably connected to other communities,” said Dalia Mogahed, director of research at ISPU. “People who endorse anti-Muslim stereotypes are much more likely to hold negative views about black Americans and Jews. And so [coalition-building is] really understandable. Beyond just being morally correct, it’s strategic to be building coalitions across these communities.”
The activism of Sarsour, and the broader Muslim American community, goes beyond racial justice, though. Sarsour has courted controversy, and risen to the top of her community, in large part because of her outspokenness on Palestinian rights in recent years. She is harshly critical of Israel’s human rights abuses, is a supporter of a one-state solution, where Israeli Jews and Palestinians live equally, doesn’t believe a two-state solution is possible, and supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel.
For those reasons, pro-Israel groups have repeatedly called for the Sanders campaign to drop Sarsour as a surrogate.
The calls are an attempt to exploit the gap between Sarsour’s positions — which are not mainstream views but are increasingly invoked on the left — and Sanders’s more moderate stances. He does not support BDS and favors a two-state solution, though he has voiced the most criticism of Israeli policy in the 2020 primary.
“Bernie doesn’t agree with me on everything. And I don’t agree with Bernie on everything on that particular issue,” Sarsour said. “But I see Bernie as someone who listens. And for the first time in at least my lifetime — and even I would say since my father has come to this country 45 years ago — we have a presidential candidate who is invoking the Palestinian plight on such a high level.”
The Sanders campaign has given no sign that it will drop Sarsour, disappointing groups like Democratic Majority for Israel, the AIPAC-linked group that has repeatedly complained about Sarsour to the Sanders camp. That kind of loyalty has energized Muslim American activists.
“As a Palestinian Muslim woman of color, that sends a message that Bernie Sanders and his future administration isn’t going to leave any community behind,” said Rasha Mubarak, a Sanders supporter, friend of Sarsour’s, and Florida community leader. “It sends a message that we can win being inclusive and talking about the very real occupation of the Palestinian people.”
Photo: Kholood Eid for The Intercept
Even after Sarsour stirred controversy with her remarks at an American Muslims for Palestine conference that Israel was built on the idea of Jewish supremacy — she later clarified that she meant to refer to Israel’s nation-state law, which enshrines Israel’s status as a Jewish state, while saying nothing about Palestinian rights and downgrading the official status of Arabic — the Sanders campaign didn’t blink. “I’ve never been chastised by the campaign. No one ever told me what to say, when to say, not to say it,” said Sarsour.
The Sanders campaign must know, after all, that Linda Sarsour cannot be silenced.


theintercept--2020-03-01--Don’t Tell Cable Pundits That Bernie Sanders Is Leading Nationally Among Black Voters

The results , MSNBC ’ s Rachel Maddow said , called the viability of Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ s campaign into question .
“ If anybody knows anything about winning the Democratic nomination and about what it takes for a Democratic nominee to win a general election , it is black voters , ” Maddow said .
“ And if Sen. Sanders continues to underperform systematically with black voters , and if we see him get shellacked — not just beaten but shellacked tonight in South Carolina — because of his performance with black voters , that ’ s an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I want every Democrat in the country to see what that looked like tonight : That is what winning looks like , ” celebrated James Carville , an old-time political operative MSNBC brings on to panic its viewers .
“ That is the job of a political party .
Not utopian fantasies , but winning elections.
” “ The single most important demographic in the Democratic Party spoke up tonight , ” said Carville on MSNBC , wearing a U.S. Marine Corps baseball cap .
He said Sanders needs to answer for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We get all enamored , and tonight we were reminded of what and who the Democratic Party is.
” “ We can not win unless we prove there ’ s excitement in the African American community , ” said former Virginia Gov .
Terry McAuliffe , an ex-head of the Democratic National Committee , on CNN , going on to endorse Biden officially on air .
Maddow , McAuliffe , and Carville ’ s point — which became a major theme of cable coverage for the night — is , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate who can ’ t win the black vote can ’ t win the nomination .
But the cable analysis carried on as if the only available information on the preferences of black voters came from South Carolina .
In fact , black voters nationally have regularly been surveyed and , recently , Sanders has taken the lead among the demographic — a fact that was , at best , only mentioned in passing .
Last week , the Reuters-Ipsos poll found Sanders besting Biden by three points nationally among black voters — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether Sanders can win among black voters .
An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found Biden up two among black voters , while the Hill/HarrisX poll had Sanders up nine .
A Morning Consult survey recently found Sanders beating Biden by five among all black primary voters , and thumping him by a 3-1 margin among black voters under 45 .
In other words , the national picture does not exactly portend a shellacking among black voters — important context that was kept from MSNBC viewers , who would be left to conclude that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s campaign in 2016 remains a major obstacle .
It simply isn ’ t true .
A handful of commentators , including former Sen. Claire McCaskill , a vituperative opponent of Sanders , acknowledged that South Carolina ’ s results may not necessarily translate into victory for Biden nationwide .
“ Unfortunately , ” said McCaskill on MSNBC , “ there aren ’ t a lot of Jim Clyburns.
” Clyburn , an iconic civil rights leader and the uncontested party leader in South Carolina , as well as the number three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last week , giving his campaign the kind of boost that can ’ t be replicated elsewhere .
( McCaskill now works for a dark-money group with links to a project opposing Medicare for All , a major plank of Sanders ’ s campaign . )
There are other reasons to suspect that Biden ’ s campaign won ’ t be able to sustain its high note after South Carolina .
The state is one of the demographically oldest .
According to CNN exit polls , six percent of voters were between the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five percent were between the ages of 25 and 29 .
Around 28 percent of voters in South Carolina were under age 45 , compared to 45 percent in Iowa , 35 percent in New Hampshire , and 36 percent in Nevada .
What ’ s more , Biden spent an enormous proportion of his resources in South Carolina , which he hasn ’ t done in Super Tuesday states or beyond , and is running low on cash .
was truly shellacked in South Carolina , losing a two-way race to Hillary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beat him among black voters 86-14 , according to exit polls .
This year ’ s exit survey found black voters making up 57 percent of the electorate with Biden winning 64 percent of that vote to Sanders ’ s 15 and Tom Steyer ’ s 13 .
( Steyer , who only performed as well as he did thanks to the millions he poured into the state , dropped out of the race as the totals came in . )
Everybody else was shellacked : Sen. Elizabeth Warren won five percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Sen. Amy Klobuchar zero .
Fortunately for them , they were barely mentioned during the TV coverage .
While MSNBC more or less omitted the forward-looking picture of the race , Fox News was more sanguine about Biden ’ s chances .
Ari Fleischer , former press secretary to President George W. Bush and the coiner of the “ axis of evil , ” played down what the win could mean for Biden in other states .
Only one of the 14 races Biden will compete in on Super Tuesday have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alabama .
“ If he can not win anywhere without huge numbers of African American votes , the upcoming battlefield is not favorable to him still , ” Fleischer said .
Former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile told Fox News that Biden and other candidates now needed to show they could build a diverse coalition and bring the resources to compete in large and small states to amass delegates they need heading into the July convention .
“ The name of the game is delegates , ” Brazile said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victory that he desperately needed today in South Carolina.
” Overall , Biden is trailing Sanders in a number of recent national polls from Morning Consult , Fox News , and Yahoo/YouGov .
The same is true in California , the state with the most delegates , where a Monmouth University poll released last week showed Sanders with support from 24 percent of likely California primary voters , and Biden with 17 percent .
A Los Angeles Times/Berkeley poll released this week showed Sanders leading with 34 percent of likely California primary voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden , who had led the poll in June , at 8 percent .
“ Based on his 34 % support in the poll , this state alone likely will give him well over 10 % of the 1,991 delegates he would need to win the nomination at the national convention this summer , ” the L.A. Times reported .
With the votes nearly all counted , Biden was heading for roughly a 29-point win in South Carolina , with only Biden and Sanders claiming delegates to the national convention ; none of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 percent threshold .
For Biden , it was a big first win of his presidential race — of any of his three presidential races , in fact : He had never won a primary or caucus victory before .
“ This is leap day , and he needed to leap back into this race , ” said former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod on CNN .
“ This could narrow down very quickly to a race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden .
”

At 7 p.m. sharp, multiple networks called South Carolina for Joe Biden, breathing a collective sigh of relief.
The results, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said, called the viability of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign into question. “If anybody knows anything about winning the Democratic nomination and about what it takes for a Democratic nominee to win a general election, it is black voters,” Maddow said. “And if Sen. Sanders continues to underperform systematically with black voters, and if we see him get shellacked — not just beaten but shellacked tonight in South Carolina — because of his performance with black voters, that’s an existential question about that nomination.”
“I want every Democrat in the country to see what that looked like tonight: That is what winning looks like,” celebrated James Carville, an old-time political operative MSNBC brings on to panic its viewers. “That is the job of a political party. Not utopian fantasies, but winning elections.”
“The single most important demographic in the Democratic Party spoke up tonight,” said Carville on MSNBC, wearing a U.S. Marine Corps baseball cap. He said Sanders needs to answer for his lack of support in the state: “We get all enamored, and tonight we were reminded of what and who the Democratic Party is.”
“We cannot win unless we prove there’s excitement in the African American community,” said former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an ex-head of the Democratic National Committee, on CNN, going on to endorse Biden officially on air.
Maddow’s, McAuliffe’s, and Carville’s point — which became a major theme of cable coverage for the night — is, in the abstract, undeniable: A Democratic presidential candidate who can’t win the black vote can’t win the nomination. But the cable analysis carried on as if the only available information on the preferences of black voters came from South Carolina. In fact, black voters nationally have regularly been surveyed and, recently, Sanders has taken the lead among the demographic — a fact that was, at best, only mentioned in passing.
MSNBC viewers would be left to conclude that the same minority-voter problem that hobbled Sanders’s 2016 campaign remains a major obstacle. It simply isn’t true.
Last week, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found Sanders besting Biden by 3 percentage points nationally among black voters — certainly a relevant data point when considering whether Sanders can win among black voters. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Biden up 2 percentage points among black voters, while the Hill/HarrisX poll had Sanders up by 9. A Morning Consult survey recently found Sanders beating Biden by 5 points among all black primary voters, and thumping him by a 3-1 margin among black voters under 45.
In other words, the national picture does not exactly portend a “shellacking” among black voters — important context that was kept from MSNBC viewers, who would be left to conclude that the same minority-voter problem that hobbled Sanders’s campaign in 2016 remains a major obstacle. It simply isn’t true.
After SC, @maddow says that if Bernie Sanders "continues to underperform systematically with black voters… that's a existential question." In reality, among black voters, Bernie finished #2 in NV & is #1 nationally! He's systematically leading. (https://t.co/3YdoKJh8sj) pic.twitter.com/rAzQNpiNpT — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) March 1, 2020
A handful of commentators, including former Sen. Claire McCaskill, a vituperative opponent of Sanders, acknowledged that South Carolina’s results may not necessarily translate into victory for Biden nationwide. “Unfortunately,” said McCaskill on MSNBC, “there aren’t a lot of Jim Clyburns.” Clyburn, an iconic civil rights leader and the uncontested party leader in South Carolina, as well as the number three Democrat in the House, endorsed Biden last week, giving his campaign the kind of boost that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
There are other reasons to suspect that Biden’s campaign won’t be able to sustain its high note after South Carolina. The state is one of the demographically oldest. According to CNN exit polls, 6 percent of voters were between the ages of 17 and 24, and 5 percent were between the ages of 25 and 29. Around 28 percent of voters in South Carolina were under age 45, compared to 45 percent in Iowa, 35 percent in New Hampshire, and 36 percent in Nevada.
What’s more, Biden spent an enormous proportion of his resources in South Carolina, which he hasn’t done in Super Tuesday states or beyond, and is running low on cash.
In 2016, Sanders was truly shellacked in South Carolina, losing a two-way race to Hillary Clinton by nearly 50 points. She beat him among black voters 86-14, according to exit polls. This year’s exit survey found black voters making up 57 percent of the electorate, with Biden winning 64 percent of that vote to Sanders’s 15 and Tom Steyer’s 13. (Steyer, who only performed as well as he did thanks to the millions he poured into the state, dropped out of the race as the totals came in.)
Everybody else was shellacked: Sen. Elizabeth Warren won 5 percent of the black vote, Pete Buttigieg 3, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar zero. Fortunately for them, they were barely mentioned during the TV coverage.
While MSNBC more or less omitted the forward-looking picture of the race, Fox News was more sanguine about Biden’s chances. Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, played down what the win could mean for Biden in other states. Only one of the 14 races Biden will compete in on Super Tuesday have a demographic similar to South Carolina: Alabama. “If he cannot win anywhere without huge numbers of African American votes, the upcoming battlefield is not favorable to him still,” Fleischer said.
Former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile told Fox News that Biden and other candidates now needed to show they could build a diverse coalition and bring the resources to compete in large and small states to amass delegates they need heading into the July convention. “The name of the game is delegates,” Brazile said. “For Joe Biden, clearly this was a victory that he desperately needed today in South Carolina.”
Overall, Biden is trailing Sanders in a number of recent national polls from Morning Consult, Fox News, and Yahoo/YouGov. The same is true in California, the state with the most delegates, where a Monmouth University poll released last week showed Sanders with support from 24 percent of likely California primary voters, and Biden with 17 percent. A Los Angeles Times/Berkeley poll released this week showed Sanders leading with 34 percent of likely California primary voters, with Warren at 17 percent and Biden, who had led the poll in June, at 8 percent. “Based on his 34% support in the poll, this state alone likely will give him well over 10% of the 1,991 delegates he would need to win the nomination at the national convention this summer,” the LA Times reported.
With the votes nearly all counted, Biden was heading for roughly a 29-point win in South Carolina, with only Biden and Sanders claiming delegates to the national convention; none of the rest seemed likely to meet the 15 percent threshold.
For Biden, it was a big first win of his presidential race — of any of his three presidential races, in fact: He had never won a primary or caucus victory before. “This is leap day, and he needed to leap back into this race,” said former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod on CNN. “This could narrow down very quickly to a race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.”
Correction: March 1, 2020, 4:11 p.m.
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story erroneously stated that Ari Fleischer coined the phrase “axis of evil.” The reference has been removed. The story also erroneously stated that Claire McCaskill works for One Country Project; she does not.


theintercept--2020-02-29--The Fight Inside the Democratic Party is Playing Out in a Slew of House Primaries in Texas and Calif

The Fight Inside the Democratic Party is Playing Out in a Slew of House Primaries in Texas and California on Super Tuesday

several weeks , Super Tuesday has loomed as a specter for the Democratic establishment , with leading figures in the party pointing to the March 3 primaries as the deadline for halting the momentum of a potential runaway candidate in Bernie Sanders .
So far , the establishment has made no progress in consolidating its forces against Sanders , who has only continued to rise in the polls .
The double-digit win in Nevada has given him momentum , though polls have him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in South Carolina today .
Still , Sanders is well positioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which he could emerge the presumptive nominee .
A slew of House races around the country , meanwhile , could put an exclamation point on the surge of progressive energy — or they could mark a bright spot in a dark moment for the establishment , if it manages to beat back the outspent challengers .
The two states at the epicenter of these fights are Texas and California — Massachusetts , another Super Tuesday state , doesn ’ t have its congressional primaries until September .
The outcomes could signal whether the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contagious , or contained by the omnipresence of the presidential campaign .
In Texas ’ s 25th District , two women are facing off in the hopes of challenging their district ’ s Republican incumbent , Rep. Roger Williams , a 70-year-old car dealer who has been in office since 2013 .
The Democratic primary on Tuesday is between 47-year-old Julie Oliver , who ran for Congress in 2018 , and 34-year-old Heidi Sloan , an activist with the Austin chapter of DSA .
The district isn ’ t considered competitive by DCCC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rural , red district , which went for Donald Trump in 2016 by 14.8 points .
( Trump won Texas by 9 points . )
But Oliver narrowed that gap in her 2018 run , coming just 8.7 points behind Williams .
She ’ s hoping another two years of campaigning can push her over the edge .
Oliver is endorsed by groups like the Working Families Party , Moms Demand Action , and the Wimberley Indivisible chapter .
Sloan is one of just three congressional candidates this cycle backed by the national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endorsements from the Sunrise Movement , the People ’ s Policy Project , and the Austin Central Labor Council .
The Texas AFT and the Texas AFL-CIO gave dual endorsements to both Oliver and Sloan .
Sloan is hoping to win her race with a record-smashing canvassing effort .
Over the course of six months her campaign knocked on 80,000 doors , and plans to reach 100,000 doors by the primary .
Sloan has worked as a preschool teacher for students with disabilities , and more recently as a farmer with the formerly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizing with the Austin DSA chapter after the 2016 election .
Oliver is an attorney with two decades of experience in healthcare finance .
Both candidates are running on a Green New Deal , Medicare for All , and an end to mass incarceration .
Oliver ’ s campaign is rejecting all PAC money , while Sloan is rejecting all corporate donations and contributions from developers .
Neither has raised much money , though Oliver has raised $ 386,000 compared to Sloan ’ s $ 176,000 .
In one of the biggest tests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cisneros is facing off in Texas ’ s 28th District against Henry Cuellar , a 15-year House incumbent and one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress .
Cisneros , who is running on Medicare for All , a Green New Deal , and proudly defending reproductive rights against her anti-choice opponent , is armed with an unusually successful fundraising haul for a first-time candidate and high-profile liberal and labor endorsements , including the Texas AFL-CIO , SEIU , EMILY ’ s List , Sens .
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren , and Rep. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 2019 , Cisneros outraised Cuellar $ 513,000 to $ 431,000 , and — as The Intercept previously reported — progressive groups and unions announced they ’ d be running an independent expenditure of at least $ 350,000 in the last two weeks of the race on canvassing , ads , and phone-banking to get Cisneros over the finish line .
Supporters are also pointing to an on-going lawsuit filed by Cuellar ’ s ex-chief of staff , accusing the Congressman of firing her because she was pregnant .
But Cuellar has tools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In late February U.S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Laredo to campaign for him .
“ We want this to be not only a victory , but a resounding victory for Henry Cuellar , ” the powerful Democratic leader said .
Cuellar also has plenty of money on hand , and is receiving some outside help from the U.S Chamber of Commerce , the American Banking Association , and a dark-money group called American Workers for Progress , which spent over $ 700,000 on a healthcare ad in January .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress to receive financial support from the super PAC founded and funded by billionaire Charles Koch , which spent $ 34,000 .
In Texas ’ s 3rd Congressional District , which covers a suburban area north of Dallas and a large swath of Collin County , two Democratic candidates are facing off for the opportunity to take on their district ’ s Republican representative , Van Taylor , who won his seat in 2018 by ten points .
The Democratic contest is between Lulu Seikaly , an attorney specializing in employment and labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trial attorney who specializes in commercial litigation .
Both entered the race in October .
By mid-February , Seikaly had raised $ 173,031 and McCaffity had raised $ 308,240 .
( A third Democrat , Tanner Do , is also running , but has only raised about $ 18,000 in almost a year of campaigning . )
The seat has been GOP-controlled for years , but the district has been trending leftward as it has grown more diverse .
The district went 64-34 for Mitt Romney in 2012 , 55-41 for Trump in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won by 51-48 in 2018 .
The district is also the most highly educated one in the country currently held by a Republican — the kind of suburban district that has been trending Democratic across the country .
Seikaly is the daughter of parents who fled Lebanon ’ s civil war and is running to be Texas ’ s first Arab-American Congresswoman .
As is not infrequently the case in swing districts , neither candidate embraces Medicare for All or a Green New Deal , and both are campaigning against privatization of public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and gun control .
Seikaly , encouraged to run by Texas progressive activist Lillian Salerno , a 2018 congressional candidate , is largely running outside of the party apparatus , and an upset by her would signal that a new brand of candidates are becoming viable in Texas , even as the platforms of the two candidates , on paper , are similar .
While Rep. Taylor tries to pitch himself as a less ideological conservative who is more willing to engage with Democrats across the aisle , his opponents note he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 96 percent of the time .
A suburban district spanning Dallas and Fort Worth pits Kim Olson — a retired Air Force colonel cut from establishment cloth — against Candace Valenzuela .
Olson has raised a substantial sum online with the battle-tested I-was-a-female-bomber route that has worked well for other Democratic candidates .
Olson ’ s biggest obstacle — and likely the reason she doesn ’ t have the backing of the DCCC — is that she was charged with war profiteering in Iraq .
As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on active duty as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq , Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $ 3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials , as well as for KBR , a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. ” Olson struck a plea deal , copping to two lesser charges relating to conflicts of interest and obtaining outside employment without permission and was allowed to retire with an honorable discharge .
Still , it makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gets past the electorate in a general election , despite Olson ’ s effort to get ahead of it in her opening ad : “ Our government couldn ’ t even pay the security detail protecting Americans .
The warrior in me did what I had to do to get the security team paid and save lives.
” EMILY ’ s List — which very rarely endorses in a race between two pro-choice women , and even more rarely endorses the progressive of the two — has gotten behind Candace Valenzuela , local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing up informs her politics .
This is a sign that DC democrats are distancing themselves from Olson , despite her establishment-friendly profile — and it soothed some of the anger at EMILY ’ s List from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for having endorsed against incumbent Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar when it got behind Jessica Cisneros .
( Valenzuela ’ s race is a high priority for the CHC , which sees an opportunity to expand its ranks in TX-24 . )
andValenzuela is not running as a full-on Justice Democrat , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party .
A third Democrat , Jan McDowell , is running for the second time .
In 2018 , she came within four points of unseating incumbent Kenny Marchant with a threadbare campaign , but has raised just $ 73,000 in the 2020 cycle so far — to Valenzuela ’ s $ 442,000 and Olson ’ s $ 967,000 .
That likely means a runoff , if none of them can get above 50 percent .
Marchant , part of the GOP stampede out the door known as Texit , isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open primary on the Republican side .
In 2018 , the 10th Congressional District — which stretches from the Austin suburbs to the Houston suburbs — was written off by the DCCC , having gone to incumbent Michael McCaul in 2016 by 19 points .
But civil-rights attorney Mike Siegel , running as an unapologetic progressive populist , closed it to within five points .
That brought in a handful of new challengers this cycle , including Shannon Hutcheson , the clear Washington favorite .
Hutcheson has been dogged in the primary by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense of a prison guard accused of assaulting migrants , among other controversial cases .
She voted in the 2010 Republican primary , the year of the tea party backlash to President Barack Obama , and has the strong support of her husband ’ s law firm , which is connected to the Texas GOP machinery .
In many ways , TX-10 is a rematch of many of the primary contests of 2018 , which pitted the left against the establishment and were mostly won by the establishment .
But this race also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Houston Chronicle and Austin Chronicle endorsed Siegel , who has a volunteer army that ’ s been in the field for months , the Austin American Statesman got behind Pritesh Gandhi , a doctor who is running to the left of Hutcheson but to the right of Siegel .
A hybrid super PAC backing Gandhi is spending big attacking Hutcheson .
A run-off is likely ; the question is whether Siegel will make it .
In California ’ s 16th District , Rep. Jim Costa , one of the most conservative Democrats in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Blue Dog Coalition , is facing the first serious primary challenge in his eight-term career in Congress .
Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria , a daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers , is challenging Costa from the left .
Her platform rejects corporate PAC money and includes Medicare for All .
Although the 37-year-old hopeful isn ’ t particularly radical , her politics are more aligned with the solidly blue district than Costa ’ s , who has voted along with Trump ’ s agenda nearly half the time .
His record includes votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to erode environmental regulations , defend U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement , and stall action on Saudi Arabia ’ s war in Yemen .
And before entering Congress , as a state senator , he led the effort to ban most kinds of rent control in California .
Despite not having raised as much money as the eight-term incumbent , Soria successfully blocked Costa from winning the California Democratic Party ’ s early endorsement at a party convention last November , receiving 46 percent of the vote to his 49 percent .
California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the candidates who receive the most votes will make it to the general election in November , regardless of their party affiliation .
In 2014 , Costa , who has only ever had to fend off Republicans , almost lost his safe seat to an obscure , underfunded GOP challenger .
Democrat Kim Williams , a former history professor and U.S. diplomat , is also running in the primary but has struggled to gain traction .
Williams is to the left of Soria , identifying closer to Sanders ’ s politics — but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 49,825 in campaign funds .
The influential progressive group California Courage has lined up behind Soria .
With the primary election just weeks away , Costa ’ s re-election campaign began airing two different attack ads , including one that was changed to remove photos of Soria and her fiancé in response to community backlash .
“ Esmeralda received $ 96,000 in pay , perks , and benefits … gave herself a 23 percent pay raise on the City Council , ” the original ad read .
“ Soria ’ s fiancé @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s fiancé received millions.
” Last spring Democratic Rep. Susan Davis , who held the congressional seat for California ’ s 53rd District since 2003 , abruptly announced she ’ d be retiring .
Now over a dozen Democratic candidates are vying for her spot in the San Diego County district , though the contest is really between Sara Jacobs , a 31-year-old former Obama State Department official , and Georgette Gómez , the president of the San Diego City Council .
Jacobs ’ s campaign is being bankrolled by her billionaire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Qualcomm .
As of mid-February , Jacobs had raised over $ 2 million and spent over $ 1,799,755 , and a super PAC formed in January to back her has spent over a million dollars on TV and digital ads since February 5 .
According to FEC disclosures , Jacobs ’ s grandparents are the super PAC ’ s only two donors .
Gómez , who has raised $ 657,970 and spent $ 537,676 , has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party , a number of prominent unions and progressive organizations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Progressive Caucus co-chairs Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan .
Despite not being endorsed by the party , in February the Jacobs campaign distributed mailers and door hangers that said Jacobs was “ endorsed by California Democrats ” with a donkey logo .
Will Rodriguez-Kennedy , the chairman of the San Diego Democratic Party , blasted Jacobs in a press conference for trying to mislead donors about who the party was rallying behind .
In fact , the state party had endorsed Gómez .
( The Jacobs campaign defended their mailer , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis and Reps. Katie Porter , Eric Swalwell , and Harley Rouda as evidence the language was fair . )
Jacobs ’ s 2018 campaign had been dogged , meanwhile , by reports that she wildly inflated her resume .
She lost that California primary to progressive Mike Levin , who went on to win the general election and flip a red seat .
Jacobs is running in a different district this time .
A poll released in early February by the San Diego Union-Tribune/10News showed Jacobs with a strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate , Chris Stoddard , polling second .
In California the top two vote-getters face off in the general election .
But Gómez may benefit from some extra support in the final month of the race .
On February 21 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Gómez , making her one the first seven progressive candidates across the country she be supported with her new political action committee .
Another challenger , veteran Jose Caballero , competed against Gómez to become the progressive alternative to Jacobs , but progressives have largely consolidated around the more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil liberties activist Shahid Buttar is running a longshot bid against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi .
Another progressive , Agatha Bacelar , is also running , but hasn ’ t picked up momentum .
Before Pelosi pulled the trigger on impeachment , Buttar was gathering steam , and since then , the presidential election has sucked much of the oxygen from the race .
Buttar ’ s goal is to finish second , ahead of the closest Republican , to make it into the general election against Pelosi .
In 2018 , he @ @ @ @ @ @

For the past several weeks, Super Tuesday has loomed as a specter for the Democratic establishment, with leading figures in the party pointing to the March 3 primaries as the deadline for halting the momentum of a potential runaway candidate in Bernie Sanders.
So far, the establishment has made no progress in consolidating its forces against Sanders, who has only continued to rise in the polls. The double-digit win in Nevada has given him momentum, though polls have him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in South Carolina today. Still, Sanders is well positioned in most Super Tuesday states, from which he could emerge the presumptive nominee.
A slew of House races around the country, meanwhile, could put an exclamation point on the surge of progressive energy — or they could mark a bright spot in a dark moment for the establishment, if it manages to beat back the outspent challengers. The two states at the epicenter of these fights are Texas and California (Massachusetts, another Super Tuesday state, doesn’t have its congressional primaries until September). The outcomes could signal whether the energy behind Sanders’s movement is contagious, or contained by the omnipresence of the presidential campaign.
Texas
25th District: Heidi Sloan vs. Julie Oliver
In Texas’s 25th District, two women are facing off in the hopes of challenging their district’s Republican incumbent, Rep. Roger Williams, a 70-year-old car dealer who has been in office since 2013. The Democratic primary on Tuesday is between 47-year-old Julie Oliver, who ran for Congress in 2018, and 34-year-old Heidi Sloan, an activist with the Austin chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.
The district isn’t considered competitive by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee standards. It’s a largely rural, red district, which went for Donald Trump in 2016 by 14.8 points. (Trump won Texas by 9 points.) But Oliver narrowed that gap in her 2018 run, coming just 8.7 points behind Williams. She’s hoping another two years of campaigning can push her over the edge. Oliver is endorsed by groups like the Working Families Party, Moms Demand Action, and the Wimberley Indivisible chapter.
Sloan’s campaign knocked on 80,000 doors in six months and plans to reach 100,000 doors by the primary.
Sloan is one of just three congressional candidates this cycle backed by the national DSA, and she also has progressive endorsements from the Sunrise Movement, the People’s Policy Project, and the Austin Central Labor Council. The Texas AFT and the Texas AFL-CIO gave dual endorsements to both Oliver and Sloan.
Sloan is hoping to win her race with a record-smashing canvassing effort. Over the course of six months, her campaign knocked on 80,000 doors and plans to reach 100,000 doors by the primary. Sloan has worked as a preschool teacher for students with disabilities and more recently as a farmer with formerly homeless people. She got involved in community organizing with the Austin DSA chapter after the 2016 election. Oliver is an attorney with two decades of experience in health care finance.
Both candidates are running on a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and an end to mass incarceration. Oliver’s campaign is rejecting all political action committee money, while Sloan is rejecting all corporate donations and contributions from developers. Neither has raised much money, though Oliver has raised $386,000 compared to Sloan’s $176,000.
28th District: Jessica Cisneros vs. Henry Cuellar
In one of the biggest tests for the progressive movement, 26-year-old Jessica Cisneros is facing off in Texas’s 28th District against Henry Cuellar, a 15-year House incumbent and one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Cisneros, who is running on Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and proudly defending reproductive rights against her anti-abortion opponent, is armed with an unusually successful fundraising haul for a first-time candidate and high-profile liberal and labor endorsements, including the Texas AFL-CIO, SEIU, EMILY’s List, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, Cisneros out-raised Cuellar $513,000 to $431,000, and — as The Intercept previously reported — progressive groups and unions announced that they’d be running an independent expenditure of at least $350,000 in the last two weeks of the race on canvassing, ads, and phone-banking to get Cisneros over the finish line. Supporters are also pointing to an ongoing lawsuit filed by Cuellar’s ex-chief of staff, accusing the congressman of firing her because she was pregnant.
But Cuellar has tools of his own in the campaign arsenal. In late February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Laredo to campaign for him. “We want this to be not only a victory, but a resounding victory for Henry Cuellar,” the powerful Democratic leader said. Cuellar also has plenty of money on hand and is receiving some outside help from the U.S Chamber of Commerce, the American Banking Association, and a dark-money group called American Workers for Progress, which spent over $700,000 on a health care ad in January. He’s even the first Democrat in Congress to receive financial support from the Super PAC founded and funded by billionaire Charles Koch, which spent $34,000.
3rd District: Lulu Seikaly vs. Sean McCaffity
In Texas’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers a suburban area north of Dallas and a large swath of Collin County, two Democratic candidates are facing off for the opportunity to take on their district’s Republican representative, Van Taylor, who won his seat in 2018 by 10 points. The Democratic contest is between Lulu Seikaly, an attorney specializing in employment and labor law, and Sean McCaffity, a trial attorney who specializes in commercial litigation. Both entered the race in October. By mid-February, Seikaly had raised $173,031 and McCaffity had raised $308,240. (A third Democrat, Tanner Do, is also running, but has only raised about $18,000 in almost a year of campaigning.)
An upset by Seikaly would signal that a new brand of candidates are becoming viable in Texas, even as the two candidates, on paper, are similar.
The seat has been GOP-controlled for years, but the district has been trending leftward as it has grown more diverse. The district went 64-34 for Mitt Romney in 2012, 55-41 for Trump in 2016, and Sen. Ted Cruz only won by 51-48 in 2018. The district is also the most highly educated one in the country currently held by a Republican — the kind of suburban district that has been trending Democratic across the country.
Seikaly is the daughter of parents who fled Lebanon’s civil war and is running to be Texas’s first Arab American congresswoman. As is not infrequently the case in swing districts, neither candidate embraces Medicare for All or a Green New Deal, and both are campaigning against privatization of public schools, a more humane immigration policy, and gun control. Seikaly, encouraged to run by Texas progressive activist Lillian Salerno, a 2018 congressional candidate, is largely running outside of the party apparatus, and an upset by her would signal that a new brand of candidates are becoming viable in Texas, even as the platforms of the two candidates, on paper, are similar.
While Taylor tries to pitch himself as a less ideological conservative who is more willing to engage with Democrats across the aisle, his opponents note that he has still voted in line with Trump 96 percent of the time.
24th District: Kim Olson vs. Candace Valenzuela
A suburban district spanning Dallas and Fort Worth pits Kim Olson — a retired Air Force colonel cut from establishment cloth — against Candace Valenzuela.
Olson has raised a substantial sum online with the battle-tested I-was-a-female-bomber route that has worked well for other Democratic candidates. Olson’s biggest obstacle — and likely the reason she doesn’t have the backing of the DCCC — is that she was charged with war profiteering in Iraq. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006: “Pentagon investigators allege that while on active duty as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials, as well as for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.”
Olson struck a plea deal, copping to two lesser charges relating to conflicts of interest and obtaining outside employment without permission and was allowed to retire with an honorable discharge. Still, it makes it hard to see how that record gets past the electorate in a general election, despite Olson’s effort to get ahead of it in her opening ad: “Our government couldn’t even pay the security detail protecting Americans. The warrior in me did what I had to do to get the security team paid and save lives.”
EMILY’s List — which very rarely endorses in a race between two pro-abortion women, and even more rarely endorses the progressive of the two — has gotten behind Candace Valenzuela.
EMILY’s List — which very rarely endorses in a race between two pro-abortion women, and even more rarely endorses the progressive of the two — has gotten behind Candace Valenzuela, a local school board member whose experience with homelessness growing up informs her politics. This is a sign that D.C. Democrats are distancing themselves from Olson, despite her establishment-friendly profile — and it soothed some of the anger at EMILY’s List from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for having endorsed against Cuellar when it got behind Cisneros. (Valenzuela’s race is a high priority for the CHC, which sees an opportunity to expand its ranks in the 24th District.) Valenzuela is not running as a full-on Justice Democrat, but is plainly allied with that wing of the party.
A third Democrat, Jan McDowell, is running for the second time. In 2018, she came within 4 points of unseating incumbent Kenny Marchant with a threadbare campaign, but has raised just $73,000 in the 2020 cycle so far — to Valenzuela’s $442,000 and Olson’s $967,000. That likely means a runoff, if none of them can get above 50 percent. Marchant, part of the GOP stampede out the door known as “Texit,” isn’t running for reelection, creating an open primary on the Republican side.
10th District: Mike Siegel vs. Shannon Hutcheson
In 2018, the 10th Congressional District — which stretches from the Austin suburbs to the Houston suburbs — was written off by the DCCC, having gone to incumbent Michael McCaul in 2016 by 19 points. But civil rights attorney Mike Siegel, running as an unapologetic progressive populist, closed it to within 5 points.
That brought in a handful of new challengers this cycle, including Shannon Hutcheson, the clear Washington favorite. Hutcheson has been dogged in the primary by her corporate law work, particularly her defense of a prison guard accused of assaulting migrants, among other controversial cases. She voted in the 2010 Republican primary, the year of the tea party backlash to President Barack Obama, and has the strong support of her husband’s law firm, which is connected to the Texas GOP machinery.
In many ways, the 10th District is a rematch of many of the primary contests of 2018, which pitted the left against the establishment and were mostly won by the establishment. But this race also includes a wild card. While the Houston Chronicle and Austin Chronicle endorsed Siegel, who has a volunteer army that’s been in the field for months, the Austin American Statesman got behind Pritesh Gandhi, a doctor who is running to the left of Hutcheson but to the right of Siegel. A hybrid Super PAC backing Gandhi is spending big attacking Hutcheson. A runoff is likely; the question is whether Siegel will make it.
California
California 16: Esmeralda Soria vs. Jim Costa
In California’s 16th District, Rep. Jim Costa, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House and a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, is facing the first serious primary challenge in his eight-term career in Congress. Fresno City Council Member Esmeralda Soria, a daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, is challenging Costa from the left. Her platform rejects corporate PAC money and includes Medicare for All. Although the 37-year-old hopeful isn’t particularly radical, her politics are more aligned with the solidly blue district than Costa’s, who has voted along with Trump’s agenda nearly half the time.
His record includes votes — alongside his mostly Republican colleagues — to erode environmental regulations, defend U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and stall action on Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. And before entering Congress, as a state senator he led the effort to ban most kinds of rent control in California.
Jim Costa, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, is facing the first serious primary challenge in his eight-term career in Congress.
Despite not having raised as much money as the eight-term incumbent, Soria successfully blocked Costa from winning the California Democratic Party’s early endorsement at a party convention last November, receiving 46 percent of the vote to his 49 percent. California’s top-two primary system means that the candidates who receive the most votes will make it to the general election in November, regardless of their party affiliation. In 2014, Costa, who has only ever had to fend off Republicans, almost lost his safe seat to an obscure, underfunded GOP challenger.
Democrat Kim Williams, a former history professor and U.S. diplomat, is also running in the primary but has struggled to gain traction. Williams is to the left of Soria, identifying closer to Sanders’s politics — but has only been able to raise about $49,825 in campaign funds. The influential progressive group Courage California has lined up behind Soria.
With the primary election just weeks away, Costa’s reelection campaign began airing two different attack ads, including one that was changed to remove photos of Soria and her fiancé in response to community backlash. “Esmeralda received $96,000 in pay, perks, and benefits … gave herself a 23 percent pay raise on the City Council,” the original ad read. “Soria’s fiancé is also her business partner. Soria’s fiancé received millions.”
53th District: Sara Jacobs vs. Georgette Gómez
Last spring, Democratic Rep. Susan Davis, who held the congressional seat for California’s 53rd District since 2003, abruptly announced she’d be retiring. Now over a dozen Democratic candidates are vying for her spot in the San Diego County district, though the contest is really between Sara Jacobs, a 31-year-old former Obama State Department official, and Georgette Gómez, the president of the San Diego City Council.
Jacobs’s campaign is being bankrolled by her billionaire grandfather, Irwin Jacobs, who co-founded Qualcomm. As of mid-February, Jacobs had raised over $2 million and spent over $1,799,755, and a Super PAC formed in January to back her has spent over $1 million on TV and digital ads since February 5. According to Federal Election Commission disclosures, Jacobs’s grandparents are the Super PAC’s only two donors.
Gómez, who has raised $657,970 and spent $537,676, has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, a number of prominent unions and progressive organizations, as well as Sanders, and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan.
Despite not being endorsed by the party, in February the Jacobs campaign distributed mailers and door hangers that said Jacobs was “endorsed by California Democrats” with a donkey logo. Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, chair of the San Diego Democratic Party, blasted Jacobs in a press conference for trying to mislead donors about who the party was rallying behind. In fact, the state party had endorsed Gómez. (The Jacobs campaign defended the mailer and pointed to endorsements by California’s Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and Reps. Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell, and Harley Rouda as evidence that the language was fair.)
Despite not being endorsed by the party, the Jacobs campaign distributed mailers and door hangers that said Jacobs was “endorsed by California Democrats” with a donkey logo.
Jacobs’s 2018 campaign had been dogged, meanwhile, by reports that she wildly inflated her resume. She lost that California primary to progressive Mike Levin, who went on to win the general election and flip a red seat. Jacobs is running in a different district this time.
A poll released in early February by the San Diego Union-Tribune/10News showed Jacobs with a strong first-place lead, and with a Republican candidate, Chris Stoddard, polling second. In California the top two vote-getters face off in the general election. But Gómez may benefit from some extra support in the final month of the race. On February 21, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Gómez, making her one the first seven progressive candidates across the country to be supported with her new PAC.
Another challenger, veteran Jose Caballero, competed against Gómez to become the progressive alternative to Jacobs, but progressives have largely consolidated around the more widely known Gómez.
12th District: Shahid Buttar vs. Nancy Pelosi
Constitutional lawyer and civil liberties activist Shahid Buttar is running a long-shot bid against Pelosi. Another progressive, Agatha Bacelar, is also running but hasn’t picked up momentum.
Before Pelosi pulled the trigger on impeachment, Buttar was gathering steam, and since then, the presidential election has sucked much of the oxygen from the race. Buttar’s goal is to finish second, ahead of the closest Republican, to make it into the general election against Pelosi. In 2018, he fell 1,000 votes short.