The Activist Trying to Bend the U.S. Congress Toward Climate
Sunrise Movement’s co-founder Varshini Prakash is pulling cautious Democrats to the left.
Varshini Prakash speaks on stage during NYC Climate Strike rally in 2019.
Photographer: Ron Adar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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The young climate activists working under the banner of the Sunrise Movement are poised to send more lawmakers to Washington next year than in 2018, with a congressional faction that could rise to as high as 10 after the election. It may seem modest, but several of these Sunrise candidates overtook establishment Democrats or else beat out party rivals who didn’t support the group’s Green New Deal agenda. That energy even helped U.S. Senator Ed Markey, who first introduced the climate resolution, fend off a primary challenge from a Kennedy in Massachusetts.