First in The Blast: Another national progressive group, the Working Families Party, is endorsing Jessica Cisneros in her primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.
"Jessica represents the voters in her district in a way that a comfortable conservative like Henry Cuellar never could," Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, says in a statement. "We need young, principled champions like Jessica in Congress, who will fight for the kinds of big structural changes that will lift up working people in Texas and across America."
The Working Families Party is the latest prominent progressive endorsement for Cisneros, a Laredo attorney who was recruited by Justice Democrats, which is best known for helping elect freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Cisneros has since been endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren as well as the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate advocacy organization.
Cisneros is the group’s first endorsement of a congressional primary challenger this election cycle. The Working Families Party, which has a Texas chapter, made national headlines last month when it endorsed Warren for president instead of Bernie Sanders, its choice for the White House four years earlier.
Earlier this morning, Cisneros rolled out 10 local endorsements, a group that included current and former precinct chairs as well as the former chairman of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party, Juan Maldonado.
— Patrick Svitek
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