There’s a battle to shape the Democratic Party this fall, and two top Senate Democrats are taking different paths in their bids to put their mark on the process.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in the duel for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan. It’s a break from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is backing Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich.
The diverging endorsements are emblematic of the fight going on behind the scenes and publicly in the Democratic Party as the old guard fights to stand its ground, while a progressive surge threatens to completely overtake the party.
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For example, Warren backed former Maine Senate Democratic nominee Graham Platner, while Schumer had courted and pushed Maine Gov. Janet Mills to get into the race.
And hours after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., stumped for El-Sayed, Warren jumped into the fray.
In her endorsement video for El-Sayed on Monday, she noted that he was “the only candidate in this race not taking corporate money, and he’s fighting to get money out of politics altogether.”
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“And make no mistake,” Warren said. “Abdul is the only candidate in this race who can build the grassroots movement needed to win in November. More money in your pocket, to get money out of politics and deliver Medicare for all. Michigan, let’s get this done.”
Notably, Warren had previously endorsed Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the race earlier this month. McMorrow was opposed to Medicare for all, a key policy push of Warren’s.
And El-Sayed has made headlines, like Platner, for his old social media posts — particularly his pitch to “defund the police” as a means to reinvest tax dollars to prevent the purchase of “war materiel to wage war in our streets.”
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Schumer took his time to go public with his endorsement in what was once a messy, three-way primary battle, first privately backing Stevens.
“I think she has the best chance to win,” Schumer told Punchbowl News last month.
Stevens has clinched the backing of a handful of other Senate Democrats, including Sens. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Chris Coons, D-Del., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., whose seat she’s eying to make her own.
El-Sayed has also amassed a list of heavy hitters, including Warren, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
Neither candidate has committed to backing Schumer to stay as Democratic leader heading into next year’s new session of Congress. And so far, El-Sayed has not spoken with the Senate’s top Democrat.
Instead, he views his candidacy as “a threat” to Schumer and the old guard’s system.
He told Politico that Schumer and Democrats were worried about his plans to push for an end to corporate money entering politics, given that the top Senate Democrat’s “whole approach is that you get to go talk to the money people and then dole out their corporate money to help elect the people who are going to do the things that corporations want.”
“So, of course, they’re freaking out,” El-Sayed said. “They’re not freaking out because they think I’m going to lose. They’re freaking out because they think I’m going to win.”
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