Ben & Jerry’s co-founders announce effort to help 7 Dem House challengers

The co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s on Friday announced that they are teaming up with liberal advocacy group, MoveOn.org, to raise awareness for a group of progressive candidates running for Congress in this year’s midterm elections. 

“We need a Democratic majority to check President Trump’s unrestrained power,” the announcement reads on MoveOn.org’s website. “And we also need to send progressive champions to Congress who will fix our health care system with Medicare for All, protect clean air and water, and get big money out of politics.”

{mosads}The effort, dubbed “Ben and Jerry take back Congress, flavor by flavor,” is a collaboration among Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield and MoveOn.org,. According to the site, the effort — which is separate from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream — aims to raise awareness for seven candidates in states such as Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Iowa. 

The campaign asks for people to create ice cream names and flavors inspired by the candidates, which include Jess King, who is running in Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District; Ammar Campa Najjar,who is running in California’s 50th Congressional District; Lauren Underwood, who is running in Illinois’s 14th Congressional District; Aftab Pureval, who is running in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District; J.D. Scholten, who is running in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District; and Stephany Rose Spaulding, who is running in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District.

According to the site, Cohen and Greenfield will then make homemade batches for each flavor and raffle off the pints to supporters. Politico reported Friday that MoveOn.org is also sending fundraising pitches for each candidate as part of the contest. 

“This is our way of honoring some of the best up and coming progressive champions across the country,” Greenfield said in a statement to Politico. 

Edward Erikson, a consultant who’s working with the Ben & Jerry’s co-founders, said the candidates all face difficult races. But Erikson said the motivation for Cohen and Greenfield’s effort was to “spread out the map.” 

This isn’t the first time Cohen and Greenfield have used ice cream to dive into politics.

In 2016, the two made an ice cream for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called “Bernie’s Yearning,” according to Politico. The design of the ice cream was intended to represent “the huge majority of economic gains that have gone to the top 1% since the end of the recession.”