Summer Lee

As a Black progressive, Lee has been a standout candidate who voters seem to agree will fit well with left-wing Democrats.

United Democracy Project (UDP), a super PAC founded by AIPAC, spent $3 million attacking Lee.

Summer Lee proved that money is surmountable when you organize and run on a progressive platform." "We built a movement in Western Pennsylvania that took on corporate power, stood up for working families, and beat back a multimillion-dollar smear campaign." "Today is a new way forward for everyone in the Commonwealth with no one left behind."

Summer Lee declared victory late Tuesday in the Democratic primary race to represent Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District in the U.S. House, ...

PA United will continue to stand by Rep. Lee through the November election and as she gets to work in Congress next year.” “Today is a new way forward for everyone in the Commonwealth with no one left behind.” “We built a movement in Western Pennsylvania that took on corporate power, stood up for working families, and beat back a multimillion-dollar smear campaign.”

The race for the 12th Congressional District is still close to call more than 12 hours after polls closed. It's a dead heat between Summer Lee and Steve ...

The Pennsylvanian is one of several progressives who are leading in key races nationwide, beating super PAC cash and centrist candidates.

Jessica Cisneros, a Sanders-backed progressive who faces similar hurdles in her May 24 primary runoff challenge to conservative US Representative Henry Cuellar, celebrated the Pennsylvania result as an encouraging sign for her race. Lee, herself, took a similar view, explaining Wednesday morning, “Our victory shows that we can overcome the billionaire class that wants to divide and conquer us all with fear and lies-for-profit, if only we come together across our differences for a positive vision of multiracial democracy. It will take time to get a final count in this contest, because Oregon’s system allows for the counting of ballots that are mailed on Election Day but arrive later in the week. In an uphill race against incumbent Republican Rand Paul this fall, he will mount a progressive-populist “Hood to the Holler” campaign that seeks to build a multiracial coalition of urban and rural voters. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Lee had a 446-vote lead over lawyer and veteran Democratic insider Steve Irwin on Wednesday morning. But Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, a Lee supporter, explained to the victory party crowd that “we know that the votes [that are left to be counted] are ours.” As cheers went up from the room, Gainey declared, “We know we have won.

The Pennsylvania representative faced down millions of dollars in negative ads from pro-Israel groups and took on the Democratic establishment by running on ...

As J‑Street spokesperson Logan Bayroff recently told the Guardian, “AIPAC are taking all this money from Republican donors, and they’re obfuscating the fact that they’re a very Republican-aligned organization while trying to persuade Democratic voters who they should support.” In total, pro-Israel groups spent at least $2.5 million on the race, almost all of it attacking Lee. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s political wing, the United Democracy Project (UDP), spent more than $2 million running attack ads and a direct mail campaign. The local branches of national Jewish progressive groups Bend the Arc and J Street also endorsed her. The newly-drawn, heavily Democratic 12th district covers Pittsburgh and the city’s southeastern suburbs. However, the local AFL-CIO, which previously opposed Lee over her anti-fracking stance, declined to endorse Irwin after his union-busting work came to public attention. Will you join your fellow readers, and help fund this work by making a tax-deductible donation today? As of Wednesday evening, Lee was leading Irwin 41.7 percent to 41.3 percent, with 99 percent of the vote reported. She lost her rematch race earlier this month to incumbent Rep. Shontel Brown (D‑Ohio), who benefitted from the attacks on Turner. Lee, too, was the beneficiary of outside money. “When we come together, we can’t be stopped.” In a statement released after declaring victory, she said: “We built a movement in Western Pennsylvania that took on corporate power, stood up for working families, and beat back a multimillion-dollar smear campaign. “They can’t say Black women can’t win,” Lee said to supporters on Tuesday night. If she wins the general election in the deep-blue district, Lee, who In These Times interviewed in 2018 after she won the Democratic nomination for the 34th Pennsylvania state house district, would become the first Black woman and the first democratic socialist to represent Pennsylvania in Congress. She is running on a platform of enacting policies such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and carceral reform while calling for ending the filibuster in the Senate, expanding the number of Supreme Court justices and ending cash bail.

It's been nearly a day since polls closed in critical primary elections in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but at least one race involving a Black woman running ...

Taken along with Gainey’s election and other developments, a Lee victory would be historic and could signal a shifting of political power in the Pittsburgh area. But she also faced a bombardment of negative ads paid for by the United Democracy Project, the political action committee of AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the country. Lee has a slim lead over Steve Irwin, an attorney who’s also a part of the party’s long-entrenched establishment in Western Pennsylvania.