Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3) is one of the last remaining pro-life Democrats in the U.S. House. He is the co-chair of the Congressional Bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus, has a generally pro-life voting record, and spoke at this year’s March for Life rally.

This, of course, makes him a ripe target for pro-abortion groups who see anyone to the right of Cecile Richards as an “enemy of women’s rights.” As a result, those extreme left wing groups are lining up to support the same woman who tried but failed to primary Lipinski in 2018:

On Monday, EMILY’s List, MoveOn, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Democracy for America announced support for Marie Newman, who is once again challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., for his suburban Chicago district.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., also recently endorsed Newman, becoming the first presidential candidate to do so.

[…]

Lipinski voted against the Affordable Care Act and has broken with his party on guns, the minimum wage, and other issues, but the focus of the backlash against him has been on abortion.

The DCCC, which earlier this year made it much more difficult for Democrats to primary other Democrats, is standing by Lipinski in spite of the challenge by groups with which they are normally allies:

“I don’t want to spend one ounce of any resource on keeping Democrats in the seats that they already have. I want to make sure that we have resources to pick up seats,” said [DCCC Chair and Rep. Cheri] Bustos, who called the DCCC “an incumbent-friendly organization.”

She called the current Democratic House majority, won in the November midterms, a “fragile majority” of 17 seats over Republicans with 31 House Democrats coming from districts that had been won by President Donald Trump, including her own 17th District.

“That’s hard. That’s job No. 1, that we spend our resources where we have to spend our resources,” she said.

As for incumbents holding positions on issues that run counter to current Democratic ideology, such as abortion rights, Bustos said her representation of rural parts of her district puts her in a position where “there’s all kinds of people who could take issue with how I vote.”

Lipinski, who has been in Congress since 2005, issued a statement defending himself:

“These endorsements make clear that Marie Newman is again running a ‘tea party of the left’ campaign at the behest of national interest groups rather than focusing on taking care of the everyday concerns of people in the district as I have a track record of doing,” Lipinski said in a statement. “This type of campaign, along with Ms. Newman’s hateful, Trump-like rhetoric, her penchant for spreading falsehoods – which she was called out for recently by an independent fact-checker, and the 2018 #metoo issues in her campaign she has still yet to address, will once again be rejected by voters.”

He narrowly won the 2018 primary. By all accounts, it was bruising.

If statements from these pro-abortion groups and the DCCC are any indication, it will be another fierce battle as Democrats on the far left seek to all but ban pro-life voices from their party, while establishment Democrats would prefer spending primary campaign funds on seats they don’t already hold.

The Illinois primary will be held on March 17, 2020.

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—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–