One of the big stories of 2017 and 2018 has been the surge of new candidates, many of them women, energized to take on Donald Trump and Trumpism. Now that those candidates are running, they're finding that, in many cases, their first obstacle is the Democratic Party itself. Lee Fang and I looked at dozens of House races around the country and found that in some cases, the party's old habits have been hard to kick. Our story -- fair warning, it's really long -- is here.(If you work at a group who has endorsed a candidate named here and you're not mentioned, email me.)
And a quick note of thanks: today is the birthday of the unsung hero of this newsletter, its citizen copy editor, my great aunt Mimi Hook. ("Citizen" is journalism-speak for unpaid.) If you've noticed that there have been far fewer typos or grammatical errors in this thing, that's completely her doing, as she volunteered out of frustration at their frequency. If you've still noticed a few slipping in, that's because she probably didn't edit that one. (She did not edit this one; she earned a day off on her birthday.)
Speaking of progressive insurgent races, if you live in Chicago, check out this fascinating challenge going right at the heart of the Democratic machine.
I reported yesterday for The Young Turks on the end of the shutdown and also the bizarre and troubling intelligence language stuffed into the bill.
On to the story:
The Dead Enders: Candidates Who Signed Up To Battle Trump Are Finding Their First Foe is the Democratic Party
By Ryan Grim and Lee Fang
In the wake of the 2016 election, a group of despairing Democrats in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, formed a new political group to ensure that they would never be out-organized locally again. Faith leaders, small-business owners, social workers, nonprofit leaders, teachers, and students joined together as part of the historic dusting-off that was taking place all across the country. The group, which came to call itself Lancaster Stands Up, put its energy toward defending the Affordable Care Act from its multiple assaults in Washington and fending off the tea party-dominated state legislature in Harrisburg.
The group's town halls and protests began to draw eye-popping numbers of people and even attracted national attention. With their newfound confidence, Lancaster progressives looked toward local and federal elections. The national press was captivated by the upsets across the state of Virginia in November, but that same night in Pennsylvania, Democrats across the state in local elections knocked Republicans out of seats they'd owned forever. The surge suggested that capturing the congressional seat covering Lancaster and Reading, which Democrats lost by 11 points in 2016, was well within reach.
FULL STORY HERE
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