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Sheila Jackson Lee Might Lose the Primary to Her Long-Ago Intern

Amanda Edwards is posing a serious threat to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the March 5 primary.

Sheila Jackson
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas has been in Congress since 1995. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is facing her first serious primary threat in three decades — and a key question is whether it’s time to pass the torch to the next generation of leaders.

“It seems to me with what’s going on, particularly during these trying times in Washington, I think we need a transfusion,” former Rep. Craig Washington, Jackson Lee’s predecessor, told NOTUS.

Washington took the idea of passing the torch quite literally: He gave Amanda Edwards, who is challenging Jackson Lee in the March 5 primary, a torch pin when he endorsed her in a joint TV interview in early February. Edwards has raised $272,000 in the last three months of 2023 alone — Jackson Lee, in contrast, raised just over $23,000.