A Progressive Challenger Has Beaten One Of The Last Anti-Abortion Democrats In Congress

WASHINGTON — In an election marked by low turnout and lack of basic voting supplies because of coronavirus concerns, Marie Newman, a progressive, pro-abortion rights challenger to incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski has won the Democratic primary in Illinois’ third congressional district.

It’s a major victory for the progressive movement, and an especially welcome one after a disappointing loss in Texas earlier this month, where Jessica Cisneros fell short in her primary challenge against incumbent Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, another anti-abortion moderate Democrat.

Decision Desk HQ called the race for Newman Tuesday night just after 10 p.m.; she led Lipinski, 47-44%, with 68% percent of precincts reporting.

Last week, ahead of the election, Illinois officials told BuzzFeed News they planned to go forward with voting without any adjustments or changes.

Later, they joined with officials from Arizona, Ohio, and Florida — all of which had primaries scheduled for Tuesday — to release a statement saying that they were “working closely with our state health officials to ensure that our poll workers and voters can be confident that voting is safe.”

"Unlike concerts, sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time, polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration," the release said. (Ohio’s governor later decided to close the polls Tuesday due to the coronavirus).

But voting Tuesday in Illinois was nothing short of disastrous. Voters and poll workers in the state told BuzzFeed News that many polling places didn’t have any hand sanitizer, or that if they did, it was only because poll workers brought bottles in themselves.

One worker said she had to turn away dozens of people because she hadn’t received voting supplies from the state, and another voter, Matt Lindner, reported having been turned away when he went to vote.

“A functioning democracy should not have this,” Lindner said.