Progressive Group That Helped Elect AOC Targets Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema for Replacement

A progressive group called the No Excuses PAC aims to replace West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, claiming the Democrats "stand in the way of progress."

The co-founders of the No Excuses PAC are searching for candidates to run against the pair since both Manchin and Sinema are up for re-election in 2024.

Two of the PAC's co-founders, Saikat Chakrabarti and Corbin Trentare, are former aides to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In 2018, the PAC helped elect Ocasio-Cortez to Congress.

On its website, the PAC claims that Manchin and Sinema "stand in the way of progress" because they sided "with Republicans to shrink their own party's pandemic relief, climate, and economic investment plans."

"Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have both pleaded to help Republicans to negotiate their own party down from real solutions to half measures in the name of 'bipartisanship," the PAC says on its website, adding "we will replace them" if they don't change their ways.

Another reason the PAC is calling to replace Manchin and Sinema is because they oppose eliminating the filibuster, a political procedure that occurs when a senator speaks on the floor for a prolonged period, without breaks, as a way to delay voting on a proposed bill.

In order to stop a filibuster and pass a bill, there needs to be a supermajority of 60 votes, which has become increasingly difficult to meet.

Progressives have pushed Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden to end the filibuster. They argue that, in an evenly divided Senate, it will be challenging to gather enough Republican support to pass portions of Biden's legislative agenda.

"The only real way to pressure any of these folks and hold them accountable to their promises is to threaten their power, and threaten the seat that they hold and threaten their re-election," Chakrabarti told Politico.

"We sort of have this theory that the voters in Arizona and the voters in West Virginia would care more about action. They care more about jobs and their community and money in their pockets than they do about an arcane Senate rule called the filibuster," Chakrabarti added.

In January, a spokesman for Sinema told The Washington Post that the senator is "against eliminating the filibuster, and she is not open to changing her mind about eliminating the filibuster." Manchin shares Sinema's viewpoint, saying he will not vote to change the filibuster.

The committee's website notes that they have already begun running advertisements in both West Virginia and Arizona targeting Manchin and Sinema, and are in the process of recruiting possible candidates to run against the pair of Democratic senators.

In an emailed statement to Newsweek on Tuesday, Corbin Trent, the president of the PAC said, "We'd been running ads to pressure them to do the right thing."

"Manchin moved a little. But we don't have time to screw around," Trent continued. "Democrats have a couple years, max, to improve the lives of the American people. If they blow it, Republicans take back over, and then we'll get another Trumper back in the White House—maybe Trump himself."

"Senators like Sinema and Manchin seem to think we need more talk and less action in the Senate. If they are dictating the agenda it'll be hard to hold on to the majority," the PAC president concluded.

Newsweek reached out to Manchin and Sinema's offices, but didn't hear back in time for publication.