Green New Deal Slate Victories
By Marcela Mulholland
President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory will have significant implications for our climate. While it’s a relief to know that we will no longer have a climate denier in the White House and instead have a President for whom climate is a top priority, to address the climate crisis at scale, we need allies and climate champions at every level of government. That’s why we teamed up with Lead Locally to launch our Green New Deal Slate of candidates a few months ago. We raised over $205,000 for our slate, and that investment paid off: Earlier this month, our candidates saw huge victories that will bring us closer to the transformative change that we need. These races will bring progressive climate policy priorities to local communities across the country. Here are some updates on how candidates on our slate did:
Harold Pope Jr. won his race for Albuquerque’s SD 23—securing a more progressive NM State Senate where he’ll stand up to the oil industry and put students over oil industry profits.
Climate activist Yassamin Ansari finished in first place in her race for Phoenix City Council and will advance to the runoff in March 2021. Ansari has built a career fighting for climate justice everywhere from the United Nations and now to her home state of Arizona. We polled her district and found that Phoenix voters overwhelmingly support clean energy investments.
Lindsey Port beat the incumbent to flip her district outside of Minneapolis. This comes on the heels of two major primary wins that position Minnesota to lead on climate and the Green New Deal.
Jovanka Beckles ran on creating a Green New Deal for public transit in the Bay Area and won. Beckles joins a cohort of DSA-backed candidates winning races across the country.
Claudia Jimenez won her race for Richmond City Council. Her victory will strengthen the movement to hold Chevron accountable for their refinery pollution in California.
In North Carolina, DeAndrea Salvador, an environmental justice and climate champion, won her race for State Senate in District 39. She was backed by leading climate organizations like Sunrise North Carolina and the Sierra Club.
Electing these Green New Deal champions is a critical step toward building lasting political power for the climate movement. The fight for our planet continues, and now we’ve got some committed local elects on our side.
Follow Lead Locally to keep up with more local climate-elections heading into 2021 and plug into their efforts to help push Yassamin Ansari over the finish line. As always, stay tuned for more climate polling and policy from us at DFP.