Three Candidates Taking On Nancy Pelosi Are Set to Debate

Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful Democrat in the nation and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but her “bipartisanship,” “fairness on all sides,” and “common ground” baloney is wearing thin with many Bay Area progressives. Pelosi could be primaried when she’s up for re-election in 2020 (not this year, but next year) and three progressive candidates taking her on in the March 3, 2020 primary will be debating this weekend.

The Pelosi Challengers Debate is this Saturday night, 6 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET). It’s an ‘online only’ debate, but you can tune in via Facebook Live on the Real Progressives Facebook page or the Real Progressives YouTube channel.

So who are these three candidates hoping to defeat Pelosi?

In this corner… We have Shahid Buttar, a civil rights lawyer and whom we’ve profiled before, and has written a guest post or two on this very website. Also in the race is Agatha Bacelar, a 27-year-old Brazilian-American immigrant who you may recall from recent VICE profile. Rounding out the field, Tom Gallagher is a self-described “member of the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party before there was a Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party,” who’s been pushing single-payer health care since he worked on the Prop. 186 ballott measure way back in 1994.

All three are hoping to avoid a replay of 2018, when no progressives made it past the primary, and Pelosi easily crushed a little-known Republican in the general election. California has a “top two” primary where the top two candidates move on to the November general election. One of them is sure to be Pelosi, but if one of these three progressives also finishes in the top two, they’ve got a real chance to beat her.

Again, the Pelosi Challengers Debate is Saturday night at 6 p.m. PT on the Real Progressives Facebook page or the Real Progressives YouTube channel.