Dems try to turn resistance into wins

Associated Press

ATLANTA

The Virginia House of Delegates. The Arizona attorney general’s office. Atlanta City Hall.

Seats of power unaccustomed to intense political attention are the focus of liberal groups as they try to turn the Trump resistance movement into tangible victories.

Long-established organizations such as MoveOn.org to newer outfits such as “Our Revolution,” the offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful presidential campaign, are backing scores of candidates for down-ballot races in 2017 as a precursor to next year’s elections, when Democrats will try to dent the GOP’s monopoly in Washington.

They’ve already picked up some victories.

Newly elected Mayor Chokwe Lumumba won in Jackson, Miss., promising to make the city “the most radical ... on the planet.” New York lawmaker Christine Pellegrino, a Sanders delegate in 2016, prevailed in a special election in a state House district President Donald Trump won easily in November.

“There’s a groundswell of progressive leaders already running and winning,” said Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party, which endorsed both Lumumba and Pellegrino. “They’re doing it by taking ideas pundits may have called outside the political mainstream and putting them at the center of the conversation.”

It’s a page from the conservative movement’s playbook, with activists and their chosen candidates operating mostly outside the official party structure to reshape Democrats’ identity from the ground up. They want to win seats held by Republicans – as Pellegrino did in New York – and elect more liberal candidates even in Democratic strongholds, like Lumumba in Jackson.