This week, Sunrise announced our endorsement of Andrew Romanoff for senate! Romanoff is running to first beat out John Hickenlooper in Colorado’s Democratic primary, and then unseat current Republican Senator Cory Gardner in the general election.
Romanoff has served as Colorado’s Speaker of the House for two terms, where he led the Democrats to their first majority in Colorado in over 30 years. If he wins this race, Romanoff has pledged to make the Green New Deal his top priority in office.1
Meanwhile, Hickenlooper and Gardner are both in cahoots with the billionaires who got us into this mess. They both oppose the Green New Deal and Medicare for All--and their races are heavily backed by the fossil fuel and health care industry lobbies.2 And Hickenlooper is a staunch supporter of the fracking industry, earning him the nickname “Frackenlooper”--even as Colorado families who live near fracking sites are suffering from severe breathing problems, asthma, migraines, and even cancer.3
Young people refuse to settle for a dangerous candidate who is more concerned with fossil fuel profits than our health and safety. Romanoff is the right candidate to defeat both Hickenlooper and Gardner, and bring a Green New Deal to people everywhere.
That’s why we’re endorsing Romanoff and launching a new team of full-time organizers in Colorado to turn out the youth vote in this race! Together with the Sunrise Colorado hubs, they’ll lead a massive volunteer team to contact thousands of voters in the coming months.
Electing Romanoff to the Senate would be game-changing in fighting the climate crisis. We’d not only get a staunch Green New Deal champion in the Senate door, we’d also be one step closer to flipping the Senate to Democratic control.
This is just the first of many endorsements we’ll be making in the coming months in key races that could help us take back the Senate. We have plans to build new field programs to reach voters not just in Colorado, but in 5 other states as well.
In each state, full-time Sunriser organizers will coach local hub leaders to build mass volunteer networks that will register hundreds of thousands of young people to vote, and canvass for Green New Deal champion candidates across the country.
If Romanoff can just win this primary, he’ll have good odds to make it all the way to the Senate. And his victory would send yet another message the Green New Deal is a winning issue, and any 2020 candidate who wants to win had better pay attention.
