Setting Our 2024 Endorsee Standard High: Susheela Jayapal

Blue America has endorsed dozens of candidates since we started in 2006. Some— like Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Bernie, Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Jeff Merkley— have turned out spectacularly while others, like Jared Golden, stand as an important reminder of our own fallibility. But no endorsement has “paid off” as handsomely as the one we made in 2016 for Pramila Jayapal, then a state senator from Seattle, now the chair of the Progressive Congressional Caucus. Last year, Pramila introduced us to her sister, Multnomah County commissioner Susheela Jayapal. Susheela was contemplating a run for the seat Earl Blumenauer would be leaving open upon his retirement. She has since declared her candidacy and Blue America endorsed her, enthusiastically.

OR-03, basically Portland and some of its suburbs, is very Democratic and very progressive. In 2020, Trump barely managed to take a quarter of the vote. The partisan lean is D+43. I feel safe to say that whomever wins the Democratic primary will be going to Congress— and not all the half dozen or so Democrats in the race are any good and only one stands out on a level of progressiveness worth getting excited about: Susheela.

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