(AFP) – From New York to Michigan, recent election wins by progressive candidates have shaken up the Democratic Party, as it vies to regain control of Congress in November, before battling for the White House in 2028. After Zohran Mamdani stormed to victory in New York’s mayoral race last year, Abdul El-Sayed’s triumph in Michigan’s Democratic primary for a US Senate race marked another stepping stone for the party’s bold left-wingers. These progressives are staring down moderates who are usually backed by the party’s top brass.
“This is just the beginning,” left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who campaigned for El-Sayed, told Politico. “We will hopefully continue this movement all across the United States of America.” For Todd Belt, a professor of political management at George Washington University, left-wing candidates are breaking through because “they’re giving some people something to vote for and not just against.”
“A lot of the progressives are talking about real solutions to the affordability crisis…whereas a lot of the moderates are depending upon the fear” of continued rule by President Donald Trump’s Republicans, Belt told AFP. Belt also cited frustration felt by many Democrats about their party’s current path. “The party is not standing up to Donald Trump as much as Democrats would like, and so they would like a change in leadership,” he said.
– ‘Deeply troubling’ –
But while progressives are celebrating, some moderates are wringing their hands with worry. “It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states,” Jonathan Cowan, the head of the centrist Third Way group, told The New York Times. Where does the anxiety come from? Moderates worry that if Democrats field polarizing candidates, skittish voters will abandon the party at a pivotal moment, with Congress and the presidency up for grabs. Keen to exploit that fear, the Republican Party has already moved to depict left-wing candidates as dangerous extremists who could hurt the United States in the long run.
After El-Sayed was declared the winner over four-term congresswoman Haley Stevens on Wednesday, Trump said the victory for the “communist loser” was “great news” for Republicans.
– ‘Critical test’ –
Indeed, the left-wing insurgents still need to win at the midterm ballot box in less than three months — and it’s not a done deal. Election data analysis site Decision Desk HQ on Thursday shifted its prediction in El-Sayed’s race against former Republican congressman Mike Rogers from “Leans Democrat” to “Toss Up.” Belt calls the November midterms a “critical test” for progressives. If they can break through in key swing states like Michigan, “the progressives will have a real strong argument that they should be at the forefront of leadership for the Democratic Party moving forward,” the professor said.
In a sign of the party’s deep internal divide, Cowan said that Third Way would spend about $15 million from now until 2028 to combat the socialist influence among Democrats, and specifically Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists movement. “We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” he told the Times. With Democratic votes on the line, and some worried that the party’s traditional voters could pass on both centrist and progressive candidates, some are calling for unity.
“The Democratic Party is a coalition that spans everything from center to socialist,” the vice president of the centrist Searchlight Institute think tank, Tre Easton, said on X. “Each part needs the other. Our voters aren’t looking for ideological supremacy. They’re looking for purpose and leadership.”
– Robin LEGRAND
© 2024 AFP
