Two progressive groups formally launched an effort on Thursday to draft Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) to run for the open Senate seat in Maryland in 2016.

Democracy For America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee surveyed their members this week and said the overwhelming response in favor of Edwards has led them to recruit her for the race.

DFA and PCCC each have more than 1 million members nationwide and a combined 35,000 in Maryland alone.

Two national progressive groups will begin raising money and launch an effort to draft U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards to join the 2016 Senate race to succeed outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski .

Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee announced their decision in an email to members Thursday, lauding Maryland’s first black congresswoman as a consistent progressive voice and “perfect fit” to replace Mikulski.

Edwards, 56, has not declared her candidacy publicly but has said that she is considering a run in what is expected to a be a crowded Democratic primary field. Her colleague, U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Marriott executive Kathleen Matthews, made their bids public days after Mikulski announced her retirement.

A pair of national liberal groups launched a draft campaign Thursday to encourage Rep. Donna Edwards to enter the race to replace U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who is retiring next year.

Democracy for America, the group founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee have sent emails to members asking them to support the five-term congresswoman from Prince George’s County.

Two liberal outside groups, Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee are rolling out an effort to get Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) to run for outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s (D-MD) Senate seat.

The two groups announced Thursday they are launching a Draft Edwards effort to get the Maryland congresswoman to run for Senate. (Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has already announced that he’s running for Senate and has a war chest of over $1.6 million —sizable for this early in the race.)

For instance, the PCCC email announcing the Draft Edwards effort notes that “Donna agrees with Elizabeth Warren that we should expand Social Security benefits —never cut them.”

Nearly every Democratic member of the Maryland House delegation is strongly considering a run for retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s (D-Md.) seat, they told The Hill on Wednesday.

Rep. Donna Edwards is getting pushed by progressive groups to get into the race. Democracy for America (DFA) and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) petitioned followers on Tuesday to support Edwards in the wide-open field of potential Democratic contenders.

“I’ve made it very clear that I’m interested in running,” Edwards said. “I see a pathway to succeeding Barbara Mikulski and I’m taking my own counsel and I’ll make a decision shortly.”

SHOT, via ADAM GREEN, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee: “New Democrats are Wall Street Democrats. They are the Bad News Bears of American politics — peddling a losing agenda of less funding for middle-class priorities and more tax cuts for big corporations at a moment when Americans are sick of a system rigged for the big guy against the little guy.”

At a press conference, a group of centrist lawmakers went off-script to criticize the party’s 2014 strategy—and also pushed back on the message of income inequality and economic fairness championed by liberal hero Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Meanwhile, outside the room, staffers from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee handed out pamphlets criticizing the activities inside.

Outside the event, staffers from the PCCC—an outside group that endorsed 11 current House Democrats during the 2014 cycle—handed out fliers bashing the New Democratic Coalition as “Wall Street Democrats” and blaming their unwillingness to back progressive reforms as the cause of 2014’s losses. The pamphlet also questioned the involvement of centrist think tank Third Way in crafting their agenda, while name-checking several of Warren’s policy positions.

A runoff that was expected to be a slam dunk for Rahm Emanuel is turning out to be uncomfortably — even dangerously — close, leading the Chicago mayor to ready a scorched-earth offensive to save his job.

Recent polling shows the race between Emanuel and his unknown and underfunded rival, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, has closed to within single digits. With local and national progressive groups lining up behind Garcia and promising to pour cash into the effort to deny Emanuel a second term, the mayor is suddenly scratching and clawing for his political existence.

Emanuel’s progressive foes, sensing an opportunity, are rushing into the contest. A pair of liberal groups, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org, are partnering on field efforts, and a third, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is raising money for the cash-starved Garcia. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has repeatedly clashed with Emanuel, said her group would also help out the challenger.

The newly open Senate race in Maryland is giving these same progressives a new, less quixotic cause: Getting Representative Donna Edwards to run for Senate. MoveOn and DFA have both dipped into the Free State with emails to supporters who could be activated for a bid. In a message to its Maryland members, MoveOn insisted that “for a progressive to win, they’ll need to start gathering support and putting together their campaign right away.” That preceded a list of 14 Democrats, from the likely (Representative Chris Van Hollen, who is actively looking at the race), to the unlikely (defeated gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown) to Donna Edwards.

An email from DFA was less subtle: It announced that the organization was “teaming up with MoveOn and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee,” and that it was asking if people were Ready for Donna.

The record of progressives pushing preferred candidates into federal races is mixed. In 2011, while Senate Democrats were trying to get Warren into Massachusetts’s race, the PCCC waged a draft campaign and collected donation pledges—$700,000 worth of them. MoveOn did the same. A copycat 2013 campaign to draft former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer into his state’s open Senate race failed only when Schweitzer bailed, focusing instead on a possible presidential bid, which has gone exactly nowhere.

Progressive groups are teaming up to rally supporters to back Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) in a potential run for Senate in 2016 to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.).

Democracy for America (DFA) and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) petitioned followers on Tuesday to support Edwards in the wide-open field of potential Democratic contenders that could be considering a run for Senate.

Edwards is a fresh face for the party who became a favorite among progressives after she knocked off a longtime Democrat in 2008. The PCCC email highlighted Edwards’ victory over “a Wall Street Democrat.”

But that closeness to Wall Street has many progressives eying her warily, and the connection to banks facing investigations or fines could add fuel to that fire. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said it increases pressure on Clinton to deliver with her deeds as much as her words.

“It’s fair for voters to be skeptical of Hillary Clinton’s speeches about holding Wall Street accountable when Wall Street institutions fund her foundation at the same time she gives those speeches,” he said.

“That’s a burden that Clinton will have to address by backing up her words with bold action — like appointing an economic team not beholden to Wall Street and showing a willingness to break up too-big-to-fail banks and jail bankers who broke the law.”

If nothing else, it underscores the challenge she’ll face during a presidential campaign in making a populist economic pitch to average voters and framing herself as a reformer while at the center of a tangled web of ties to troubled banks.

Moderates are raising concerns about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her supporters’ rhetoric against big business and Wall Street. Progressives are concerned the party will move too close to business.

Adam Green, who co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), told The Hill the party should follow the Warren wing.

“There is a rising economic populist tide in America — and the path to success in 2016 for Democrats is to campaign on a popular Elizabeth Warren-style agenda,” Green said.

Green said that “those who refuse to name villains are usually being paid by those villains, and voters can sense it.”

“The public wants leaders with the courage to stand up for the little guy while calling out bad actors — like the Wall Street bankers who broke the law, wrecked our economy, and hurt millions of people’s lives,” Green said.