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Justice Democrats
| Justice Democrats | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Lancaster, Pa. |
| Type: | Political action committee |
| Affiliation: | Democratic |
| Top official: | Alexandra Rojas, executive director |
| Founder(s): | •Cenk Uygur •Kyle Kulinski •Zack Exley •Saikat Chakrabarti |
| Year founded: | 2017 |
| Website: | Official website |
Justice Democrats is a federal political action committee (PAC) that was founded with the aim of supporting progressive challengers to unseat Democrats who the group believes are "aligning with Wall Street over working men and women."[1][2]
Background
As of August 2025, Justice Democrats' website said its goal was to elect "a bloc of working class leaders in Congress who meet the urgency of our political moment and serve the people’s agenda — not the interests of big corporate donors."[3]
Justice Democrats was founded in January 2017 by Cenk Uygur of the progressive online news program The Young Turks, Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, and former Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffers Zack Exley and Saikat Chakrabarti.
Uygur and the group's treasurer, David Koller, resigned from the organization in December 2017 after it was learned that both had authored blog posts in the early 2000s that contained language the organization deemed sexist or degrading to women.[4] Kulinski also subsequently resigned from the board due to his disagreement with how Uygur's departure was handled.[4][5] Chakrabarti left the group in December 2018 to serve as chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D).[6]
Leadership
As of August 2025, Alexandra Rojas was the executive director of Justice Democrats.[3] Amira Hassan and Waleed Shahid were board members of Justice Democrats.[3]
Work
Political activity
- See also: PACs and Super PACs
As a nonconnected political action committee (PAC), Justice Democrats is not affiliated with any corporations, labor unions, membership organizations, or trade associations. The group raises funds from individuals who wish to contribute to the committee and disburses funds to support federal candidates according to federal contribution limits. Politico reported in 2025 that the group "said its goal is to purge the party of members who don’t align with the working-class voters and build a more appealing Democratic Party."[7]
2025-2026 election cycle
In January 2025, Justice Democrats announced they would be recruiting candidates for the 2026 midterm elections in all 50 states.[7][8] In April 2025, the group announced it was endorsing Michigan State Rep. Donavan McKinney in a primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D).[9]
2020 elections
As of July 2020, Justice Democrats had announced its support for six primary challengers to House Democratic incumbents in 2020, two general election candidates for U.S. House and one for U.S. Senate, and its endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) in the Democratic presidential primary.[10]. The group continued its efforts to recruit primary challengers to Democratic U.S. House incumbents in districts it considered unlikely to be competitive in the general election with a recruitment drive known as #OurTime.[11] Compared to 2018, Justice Democrats planned "to spend more on fewer candidates and is working to build a larger infrastructure and a bigger fund-raising arm," according to The New York Times.[12]
| Justice Democrats endorsed challengers, 2020 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | District | Primary date | Incumbent |
| Georgette Gómez (D)[13] | California's 53rd Congressional District | March 3, 2020 | Susan Davis (D) |
| Jamaal Bowman (D)[14] | New York's 16th Congressional District | June 23, 2020 | Eliot Engel (D) |
| Cori Bush (D)[15] | Missouri's 1st Congressional District | August 4, 2020 | William Lacy Clay (D) |
| Jessica Cisneros (D)[16] | Texas' 28th Congressional District | March 3, 2020 | Henry Cuellar (D) |
| Kara Eastman (D)[17] | Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District | May 12, 2020 | Don Bacon (R) |
| Morgan Harper (D)[17] | Ohio's 3rd Congressional District | March 10, 2020 | Joyce Beatty (D) |
| Alex Morse (D)[17] | Massachusetts' 1st Congressional District | September 15, 2020 | Richard Neal (D) |
| Marie Newman (D)[15] | Illinois' 3rd Congressional District | March 17, 2020 | Daniel Lipinski (D) |
| Betsy Sweet (D)[15] | United States Senate, Maine | June 9, 2020 | Susan Collins (R) |
As of July 2020, the group had also endorsed seven U.S. House incumbents for re-election.[18]
| Justice Democrats endorsed incumbents, 2020 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | District | Primary date |
| Raul Grijalva (D) | Arizona's 3rd Congressional District | August 4, 2020 |
| Ro Khanna (D) | California's 17th Congressional District | March 3, 2020 |
| Ayanna Pressley (D) | Massachusetts' 7th Congressional District | September 15, 2020 |
| Rashida Tlaib (D) | Michigan's 13th Congressional District | August 4, 2020 |
| Ilhan Omar (D) | Minnesota's 5th Congressional District | August 11, 2020 |
| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) | New York's 14th Congressional District | June 23, 2020 |
| Pramila Jayapal (D) | Washington's 7th Congressional District | August 4, 2020 |
2018 elections
In 2018, Justice Democrats recruited 12 Democratic primary challengers and endorsed 66 other candidates. The only Justice Democrats-recruited candidate to win election to Congress that year was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D).[19] The group endorsed the following Democratic congressional candidates in 2018:[20]
Notable endorsements
This section displays endorsements this organization made in elections within Ballotpedia's coverage scope.
Finances
Justice Democrats reported the following fundraising information to the Federal Election Commission:
| Year | Total Receipts | Total Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024[21] | $5,150,815.72 | $4,926,996.17 | $1,096,243.17 |
| 2023[22] | $2,506,499.87 | $1,944,297.42 | $872,423.62 |
| 2022[23] | $4,155,949.69 | $4,588,658.06 | $310,221.17 |
| 2021[24] | $2,318,132.06 | $2,269,736.32 | $742,929.54 |
| 2020[25] | $4,514,996.73 | $4,399,332.34 | $694,533.80 |
| 2019[26] | $1,773,641.70 | $1,381,796.30 | $578,869.41 |
| 2018[27] | $1,267,047.83 | $1,222,566.84 | $187,024.01 |
| 2017[28] | $1,459,910 | $1,317,367 | $142,543 |
Donors
According to Justice Democrats' co-founder Cenk Uygur, the group opposes corporate donations and only accepts funds from small donors. He told Wired in January 2017, "You can’t raise money on TV by asking people to go to a website later. And we’re not going to take money from corporations. We’re going to do it with small online donors, Bernie style."[29]
Noteworthy events
DCCC blacklist
On March 22, 2019, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced that it would no longer do business with firms who also worked with primary challengers to Democratic U.S. House members and encouraged House members' campaigns to do the same.[30]
In an interview with National Journal, Rep. James Clyburn (D) praised the policy change. He argued that the existing policy had been unfair because it meant that the DCCC was providing funds to firms who were working to oppose the re-election of dues-paying House Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) criticized the policy on Twitter, calling it "extremely divisive & harmful to the party". She urged supporters to halt donations to the DCCC and give directly to candidates instead.[31]
Following the announcement, influencer groups opposed to the decision, including Justice Democrats, Democracy for America, and Our Revolution, launched DCCC Blacklist. The website's purpose is "to fight back and provide potential primary challengers with a database of go-to vendors, organizations, and consultants who will continue to support efforts to usher in a new generation of leaders into the Democratic Party."[32]
On March 9, 2021, the chairman of the DCCC, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D), reversed the policy. "This policy change means that the only criteria for a vendor to be listed in the directory are our standards for fair business practices," said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for Maloney.[33]
| Click [show] to view a full list of sponsoring organizations. | |||
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Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Justice Democrats. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats—Statement of Organization, amended," March 1, 2017
- ↑ Justice Democrats, "Home," accessed May 22, 2017
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Justice Democrats, "About," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Huffington Post, "Progressive Group Ousts Cenk Uygur Over Past Sexist Writing," December 23, 2017
- ↑ Twitter, "Kyle Kulinski on December 23, 2017," accessed February 21, 2018
- ↑ India Abroad, "Saikat Chakrabarti: The techie behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," December 16, 2018
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Politico, "Justice Democrats say primary challenges are back on the menu," January 14, 2025
- ↑ Axios, "Left-wing group mounts new push to unseat House Democrats," January 14, 2025
- ↑ Politico, "Justice Democrats launch new primary challenge," April 28, 2025
- ↑ Politico, "Sanders backed by Justice Democrats," March 8, 2020
- ↑ NBC News, "In new video, Ocasio-Cortez joins progressive effort to oust more incumbent Democrats," January 16, 2019
- ↑ The New York Times, "Justice Democrats Helped Make Ocasio-Cortez. They’re Already Eyeing Their Next Targets." February 23, 2019
- ↑ KPBS, "Jacobs Leads In 53rd District Race With Gomez In Second," March 4, 2020
- ↑ BuzzFeed News, "The Group That Helped Bring AOC To Congress Has A New Candidate For 2020," June 18, 2019
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The Hill, "Justice Democrats issues 3 new endorsements for progressive candidates," July 10, 2019
- ↑ The Hill, "Justice Democrats endorse primary challenge to Texas Dem Cuellar," June 13, 2019
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Politico, "Harris becomes first top-tier presidential candidate to hit the airwaves," August 8, 2019
- ↑ Justice Democrats, "2020 Slate for Justice," accessed July 27, 2020
- ↑ Politico, "‘There Is Going to Be a War Within the Party. We Are Going to Lean Into It.’," February 4, 2019
- ↑ Justice Democrats, "Candidates," accessed February 15, 2018
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Filing Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Filing Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats," accessed August 25, 2025
- ↑ Filing Federal Election Commission, "Justice Democrats
- ↑ Wired, "Social Media-Powered Berniecrats Try to Move the Party Left," January 23, 2017
- ↑ Huffington Post, "DCCC Promises To Blacklist Firms That Work With Candidates Challenging Incumbents," March 22, 2019
- ↑ The Hill, "Progressives hammer DCCC over blacklist targeting primary challenges," March 30, 2019
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 DCCC Blacklist, "Home," accessed September 19, 2022
- ↑ New York Times, "The D.C.C.C. Blacklist Is No More." March 31, 2021
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