Sunrise Movement endorses Cuellar primary challenger

The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led environmental organization, endorsed Texas progressive House candidate Jessica Cisneros on Monday, marking the first 2020 primary challenger endorsed by the organization. 

Cisneros is challenging Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who has been a target of progressive Democrats ahead of 2020. 

{mosads}“Even though he [Cuellar] calls himself a Democrat, he rakes in campaign contributions from fossil fuel CEOs and Wall Street and joins with Trump to do their bidding in Congress,” the Sunrise Movement’s executive director, Varshini Prakash, said in a statement. 

“Young people like Jessica Cisneros have seen the impacts of these failed policies for our entire lives,” he continued. “In 2020, we’re going to turn our generation out in historic numbers in TX-28 and around the country to boot out failed Democratic leaders like Henry Cuellar who have failed to fight for us.”

Cisneros has earned a plethora of progressive endorsements from figures like 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) since launching her candidacy in June. 

She was also immediately endorsed by the progressive group Justice Democrats, which also backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) 2018 House run. 

The Sunrise Movement’s endorsement demonstrates the importance of environmental issues like climate change to progressives, and the Democratic Party as a whole. 

2020 Democratic presidential contenders showcased their environmental platforms last week in an MSNBC town hall at Georgetown University as protesters across the world took to the streets to protest inaction on climate change.