The announcement comes on the eve of another round of crucial Tuesday primaries, including a
do-or-die contest in Michigan, a state that Sanders won in 2016 and Democrats are desperate to reclaim from President Donald Trump this November. WFP leadership decided to back Sanders -- and make the argument to Warren loyalists that they should do the same -- after it became clear that the nominating contest would come down to either him or former Vice President Joe Biden.
"We understand that there are people on the fence. We are, just like them, Warren supporters who are disappointed that our candidate left the race, but there's work that remains to be done and we're going to be committed to the change that brought us to the Warren campaign," WFP national director Maurice Mitchell said.
"Sen. Sanders' campaign is a natural home for Warren forces that are looking to get the job done." —
www.cnn.com/...
The WFP is composed of committed progressive organizers. It brings enormous canvassing and volunteer resources to the table, with tens of thousands of members in New York alone.
It operates as a “fusion party”, endorsing, and working with some Democrats in primary and general election campaigns. In NYC, it played a major role in ending the careers of the IDC. This was a group of Democrats who voted to keep Republicans in control in the NY senate, in exchange for positions on committees. Organizations like the WFP play a key role in ensuring self-serving politicians like the members of the IDC don’t create alliances with right-wingers in the GOP to undermine their constituents.
The Working Families Party started its political experiment more than 20 years ago in New York, with the goal of pushing the Democratic Party further left by pairing pro-labor policies with aggressive outreach to working class voters. In Albany, where the WFP is an actual political party, it recently helped put the nail in the coffin of the now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference, a group of state legislators who for seven years orchestrated a power-sharing arrangement with Republicans. The IDC broke up in 2018 under pressure from progressives, only to have six WFP-backed candidates replace their former members.
The WFP has also been heightening its profile outside of New York — it made its first national political endorsement for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2015 — and it has ballooned in size over the last several years, now with chapters in 18 states and the District of Columbia. — theintercept.com/...
— @subirgrewal