The story, which highlights young progressive candidates across the country, touches on how the 2018 midterms has helped harvest a new generation of leaders out of progressive groups and community organizations nationwide, and how they're now stepping up and running for office.
Harkening back to the 2010 midterms, The Atlantic's David Graham compares the potential 2018 Democratic blue wave to the Tea Party's run almost a decade ago, in which the conservative movement managed to capture the U.S. House and control of 20 state legislative chambers.
From The Atlantic:
Eskamani is 28, the same age as the newly minuted progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like Ocasio-Cortez, who cut her teeth as an organizer for the Bernie Sanders campaign, Eskamani is not a political newcomer. At Planned Parenthood, she’s done everything from organizing to fund-raising to marketing, all skills that are helpful in running for office. When she decided to run, she spent months drawing up lists of donors, considering logo designs, and lining up support behind closed doors before she filed, most of it outside the auspices of the party.
“At the end of the day, the Democratic Party was not providing mentorship or development,” she says. “The dynamic about finding the next generation of leaders was not happening in our party.”
Eskamani has picked up endorsements so far from the likes of U.S. Rep. Val Demings, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, former Maryland Governor and 2016 presidential candidate Martin O'Malley and the Working Families Party, among a number of others.
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