Pro-life Democrat Lipinski faces another primary challenge

Washington D.C., Apr 17, 2019 / 15:30 pm

One of the few pro-life Democrats in Congress will once again face a primary challenger in his next election.

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL), narrowly defeated challenger Marie Newman in 2018 by 2,145 votes.  Following an announcement by Newman on Tuesday, he will now face her again in the March 2020 primary.

Illinois' 3rd District is considered to be a safe Democrat district, with the more substantial electoral battle taking place during the primary. At the general election, Lipinski was reelected with over 70 percent of the vote in 2018.

Despite the previous primary campaign focusing heavily on Lipinski's strong pro-life record vs Newman's unqualified support for abortion, Newman said on Twitter that the district now deserves "a representative who will vote like a real Democrat in Congress-not someone who routinely sides with Trump and conservative interest groups over his own constituents."

Democrats for Life executive director Kristen Day told CNA she disagrees with Newman's characterization of Lipinski as a conservative or a right-wing Democrat.

Instead, she said, Lipinski's views on abortion are more in line with what Americans believe, espcially on abortion.

"When you look at polls, the majority of Americans have more moderate positions on abortion," she said. Day told CNA she is worried that Newman's repeated primary challenges are an effort to alienate pro-life Democrats, which she called "a wrong direction for the party."

"The (Democratic) party has just gone so far to promote abortion," said Day. "It just seems as though they want to purge all the pro-life voters. The party has just been really taken over."

Day noted that despite Newman's description of Lipinski as a bad Democrat, he has been consistently well-rated by left-leaning interest groups. The Sierra Club, for instance, has given Lipinski a 100 percent rating on several occasions, and the AFL-CIO gave Lipinski a lifetime score of 91 percent. The National Education Association, the largest labor union of teachers, gave Lipinski a 100 percent rating in 2017-2018.

"They're not being honest when they're trying to tag Dan Lipinski as a conservative," said Day. "He's not."

Lipinski has a score of 13 from the American Conservative Union's legislative scorecard's 2018 ratings. His Democratic colleagues Reps. Bill Foster (D-IL) and Brad Foster (D-IL) both received higher scores from the American Conservative Union.

So far in 2019, the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks has given Lipinski a zero rating, and his lifetime rating is just 12 percent.

Neither Lipinski nor Newman replied to requests for comment in time for publication.

Correction: This article originally referred to the Sierra Fund instead of the Sierra Club, it has been ammended.