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The move puts the California Democrat in the midst of a closely watched fight and could give Kennedy a boost ahead of the Sept. 1 primary election, where he challenges Markey, who served alongside Pelosi for decades as member of the House of Representatives. .
“Massachusetts and America need the courage and leadership of Joe Kennedy in the Senate to fight for the change we need,” Pelosi said.
A Kennedy never lost Massachusetts. But Markey, 74, countered the brilliance of the Kennedy name by projecting the power of some of the party’s stars, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who raised money for the Senator . Progressives, who have spent the past five years on the attack, trying to win moderate incumbent seats in the House, have put their weight behind Markey’s campaign and see his seat defense as one of their own. most important fights of the cycle. .
Supporters of Markey say he deserves another six-year term based on his voting record and point to his Green New Deal co-author and previous support for “Medicare for All,” pointing to both as signs that he is of the time.
Kennedy, meanwhile, argued he would be a different kind of senator, who would travel across the country and the state to elect Democrats, as he did in 2018 to help the party regain power. Bedroom.
Progressives – including Ocasio-Cortez – reacted to the news with frustration. The party leadership has aggressively sought to defend its incumbents against the main challengers, but Pelosi’s approval, they argued, came in defiance of that rule.
“No one can complain about the main challenges again,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, punctuating the sentence with a happy emoji, before addressing the House’s Democratic campaign arm.
“When can we expect you to revoke your blacklist policy against major organizations?” She asked. “Because between that and the lack of attention around @IlhanMN’s challenger, it seems less of a policy and more of a breeding activity.”
The “blacklist” refers to a rule instituted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that prohibits party consultants from working for top challengers. Those who do risk being barred from receiving contracts with other DCCC-aligned campaigns, a fact other progressives cited when calling Thursday for Pelosi’s approval.
“When progressives challenge Democrats who vote with Trump 2/3 of the time, Nancy Pelosi screams scandal and works with the (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) to blacklist anyone who helps the challenger. But when she loves the challenger, or the challenger has a rich, wealthy family, are you okay? Sunrise Movement executive director Varshini Prakash, whose group is one of Markey’s main supporters, said in a statement. “It was never about protecting the incumbents, it was about protecting the incumbents. major Democratic donors by taking advantage of the status quo. “
Justice Democrats, the group that drew Pelosi’s ire for launching and supporting progressive primary campaigns against members of her caucus, accused the President of hypocrisy and “using her power to undermine the next generation of voters Democrats and the progressive champions we choose to believe in. “
“For two years, the Democratic Party leadership endorsed the incumbents rather than the main progressive challengers, saying their policy was to always support the incumbents – even when the incumbent president was anti-choice and endorsed by the NRA,” said the executive director of Justice Democrats, Alexandra Rojas. “But now, when a sitting US Senator defends the Green New Deal as wildfires cover President Pelosi’s home state in smoke, she chooses to endorse a challenger.”
CNN’s Alex Rogers contributed to this report.
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