DEMS/ELECTIONS/NEW YORK/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A political action group formed in the wake of the 2016 presidential election as a counterweight to the Trump presidency is pumping significant resources into local primary races in New York, providing rookie candidates with funding and training to battle entrenched Albany incumbents. The group, called ‘The Arena,’ is the brainchild of Obama 2008 campaign alumnus Ravi Gupta, who joined with other Obama alums and veterans of the Hillary Clinton campaign to help field well-prepared Democratic candidates for public office in races across the country after Clinton’s shocking defeat in November of 2016. In addition to congressional races, it is turning extra attention toward the New York Legislature, where it’s backing a slate of candidates running for state Senate against the members of the former Independent Democratic Conference. That group of Democrats, who have caucused for years with Republicans, is now being targeted in the Trump era…The group’s name is a reference to former President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 speech in which he famously asserted, ‘It is not the critic who counts … the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.’ The program provides money, infrastructure and a kind of campaign boot camp to its chosen candidates who often lack the resources and savvy to take on political veterans.”
–Laura Nahmias, “National group formed to fight Trump focuses on New York Senate races,” Politico, August 24, 2018 5:01 am