Sunrise to Biden: pass the torch to protect your climate legacy

Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay issued the following statement:

For the future of our democracy and our planet, we must defeat Trump this November. If Trump wins, he will demolish President Biden’s historic climate achievements, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and American Climate Corps. Another Trump Presidency would cause catastrophic and irreversible damage to our climate.

The Democratic Party must seriously assess whether Joe Biden can successfully convince voters and energize volunteers. After speaking with young people around the country over the last few weeks, I’m concerned that Joe Biden isn’t positioned to mobilize young people and win in November.

In 2020, Biden was able to energize young people to not only vote, but urge their friends, parents, and neighbors to do the same. We saw that energy at Sunrise, when our volunteers contacted 3.5 million young voters urging them to vote for Biden. Since the debate, already low enthusiasm for Biden has continued to drop.

To be very clear, regardless of who the Democratic candidate is, our plan is the same: to persuade young voters to turn out for the Democratic nominee in order to defeat Trump. With another ticket that energizes young volunteers, we could contact up to twice as many voters this fall.

To young people: losing this election could alter the rest of our lives. In order to fight for our generation and our future, we must vote for the Democratic nominee.

Joe Biden’s next climate legacy-defining act must be to pass the torch to a new nominee. Today, I'm thinking about my family in Minneapolis and Kerala. About the world I want my generation to live in. The stakes are too high. We can’t afford to ignore the warning signs in front of us.