Politics
Up next for the DSA? Two major swing states.
It’s hot outside. But the DSA is hotter.
Fresh off major primary wins in Colorado and New York, the Democratic Socialists of America is looking to prove that it can translate its momentum beyond deep-blue House primaries and into competitive statewide races.
DSA officials and allies told Blue Light News they’ve already shifted organizers, volunteers and resources toward battleground Michigan and Wisconsin, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed is locked in a three-way Democratic primary for Michigan Senate and DSA-backed Francesca Hong is gaining steam in her primary for Wisconsin governor.
Both El-Sayed and Hong are planning a series of major rallies ahead of their primaries, and their campaigns and DSA organizers are currently discussing bringing many of the movement’s biggest stars — including recent winners from New York and Colorado — to generate attention and shore up the broader national effort. That will likely include a trip to Michigan for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who just made a major endorsement for El-Sayed.
“It’s DSA summer. We can’t stop racking up wins,” said Emma Vigeland, co-host of the long-running progressive program The Majority Report, who has campaigned for DSA candidates this primary season. “We’re seeing the culmination of 10 years of democratic socialism becoming more mainstream.”
Sustaining that summer momentum will be a tall task, as the DSA and the insurgent left try to harness the infrastructure they need to extend their wins into the battlegrounds.
But popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) are already planning to hit the trail to boost DSA picks in Michigan and Wisconsin ahead of the August primary.
And DSA membership has surged, according to national co-chair Megan Romer, with more than 7,500 new members signing up nationally since the sweeping victories in the Big Apple.
The DSA held a national members call Thursday night to rally the troops featuring two of the organization’s newest stars: Pennsylvania congressional nominee state Rep. Chris Rabb and Melat Kiros, who this week scored a major primary upset in Colorado over longtime Rep. Diana DeGette. Members also addressed Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent attacks on the group.
“This is a movement moment,” Hong said in an interview, pushing back on skeptics who question whether democratic socialists can win statewide in a state President Donald Trump carried twice. “More and more folks are recognizing that the system is rigged and they deserve a more democratic economy, where the power and control are with the workers and not the establishment, the elites and the mega corporations.”
The democratic socialist surge has been building since Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign brought the movement into the mainstream. But it’s been supercharged by progressive voters’ frustration with Democratic leadership, especially following former President Joe Biden’s late exit during the 2024 race and the party’s tepid response — in the eyes of many in the base — to the second Trump administration.
That anti-Washington sentiment has now resulted in DSA’s most successful primary season yet, putting democratic socialists on pace to have at least eight aligned members of Congress next year, not to mention the mayorships of New York City, Washington and Seattle — with more races still ahead.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In California, DSA-backed Sean Dougherty lost his blanket primary against Rep. Jimmy Panetta, while Chris Bennett fell short against Rep. Kevin Kiley, losses that point to a bigger question ahead: How far can the movement translate its surge of national attention and energy? Especially as establishment Democrats and outside groups look to blunt its momentum — and as Republicans ramp up efforts to turn the group into a campaign boogeyman.
“One of the biggest challenges of organizing is helping people channel their organic excitement — positive or negative — into movement growth,” Romer said. “We’ve built these structures and now we get to help people find their way into them so they can use them to win what they want.”
In Wisconsin, Hong is mounting one of the group’s clearest tests yet of whether a democratic socialist can win statewide, running on affordability and opposition to data center expansion — a message that has boosted her into a leading position in some polling heading into next month’s contest.
Public polling in the Wisconsin governor’s race has been sparse. A Marquette University Law School poll from March showed Hong leading the Democratic field at 14 percent among voters who named a candidate, ahead of Mandela Barnes at 11 percent, with 65 percent still undecided.
Hong, who last week appeared on Piker’s stream and raised over $50,000 from viewers in under an hour, says she plans to try unconventional ways of meeting voters heading into the primary.
“We will continue to be campaigning in creative ways, where people are meeting a candidate where they weren’t expected to meet a gubernatorial candidate — bike rides and dive bars,” she said.
Nearby Michigan is shaping up to be perhaps the most important state on the primary calendar this August for the strength of the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party. El-Sayed is not explicitly backed by DSA, but he’s widely viewed within the movement as part of the same progressive project, and organizers are going all in behind El-Sayed’s Senate campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed El-Sayed during his 2018 gubernatorial bid, joins Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who previously backed him in this campaign, in lining up two of the most influential voices on the left behind him.
“Everybody in the coalition is on the same page, whether it be Justice Dems, whether it be [Working Families Party], whether it be DSA,” said Vincent Vertuccio, Egret Strategies, a consulting firm that has worked with leftists running for office this cycle. He said Michigan is “absolutely the next focus of this national movement.”
Piker, who has become a highly sought-after surrogate for insurgent candidates this primary season, told Blue Light News that he was headed to Michigan soon to rally support: “Abdul El-Sayed is not DSA affiliated, but he’s a progressive fighter. He’s a Berniecrat, and I’m excited to help him out to the best of my ability.”
A recent Quantus Insights poll from late June found El-Sayed leading Rep. Haley Stevens 41 percent to 36 percent, with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow trailing at 8 percent.
The DSA has another target in Michigan: Ousting incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar, a former democratic socialist member whom the organization says it expelled over what it described as a “substantial disagreement with the values of DSA.” Thanedar at the time claimed he had renounced his membership, citing the organization’s promotion of a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City in the days immediately after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023.
The representative now faces a DSA-backed challenger in state Rep. Donavan McKinney in Michigan’s 13th District.
Tlaib, an original member of the Squad, is working hard in her backyard to boost both McKinney and El-Sayed. In an interview, she said that the current momentum behind insurgent candidates reminds her of the 2018 wave that first brought her into Congress along with other Squad members, and their frustration once Democrats won unified control in the 2020 elections.
“Democrats had the trifecta and we couldn’t even get the Voting Rights Act passed. We couldn’t even get Build Back Better passed that was about child care and housing,” she said. “These are not years that we can get back for our residents, and especially our children.”
McKinney has hit Thanedar over taking corporate PAC money and questioned his progressive credentials. Tlaib and DSA are banking on their organizing efforts to propel the challenger to victory.
“[Mckinney] was raised in Wayne County all his life. He understands what it feels like to smell like rotten eggs when you go outside because the air is so polluted,” Tlaib added. “People are hungry for folks that will move with urgency.”
Politics
It might take ‘a lightning bolt from God’ to get these Senate Democratic hopefuls to bow for independents
Democrats vying for a pair of deep-red Senate seats are facing increasingly desperate calls from within their party to step aside for more promising independent candidates.
But they say they won’t drop out — unless there’s divine intervention.
Democrats Alani Bankhead of Montana and Julian Beaudion of South Dakota both told Blue Light News they have no plans to exit the race, despite pressure from national — and even some state — Democrats to step aside. Numerouspolls, coupled with strongerfundraising and campaign operations, show independents Seth Bodnar and Brian Bengs have a stronger — if still muddied — path to victory in November.
If the Democrats stay on the ballot, it will be almost impossible to claw these seats away from Republicans in Mountain West states that President Donald Trump dominated in 2024.
“I’m a person of faith. If a lightning bolt from God struck me and was like, ‘Alani, get out of the race,’ sure,” Bankhead told Blue Light News when asked if anything would change her mind. Otherwise, she said there’s “absolutely nothing.”
Beaudion has a similar resolve: “To be clear, we are not considering dropping out of the race,” he told Blue Light News.
By digging in, the Democrats could imperil their party’s hopes of regaining Senate control in an already uphill cycle. There’s broad agreement across the many factions of the Democratic Party that a crowded race relinquishes any hope of victory. Bengs has argued that Beaudion remaining on the ballot jeopardizes his chance of winning this fall against GOP Sen. Mike Rounds. Bodnar has maintained he has a viable path either way, and he could be helped out if the Libertarian candidate in the race pulls votes from Republican Kurt Alme.
The deadline to withdraw in South Dakota is Tuesday, and Montana’s is shortly after, on Aug. 10. Democrats across the ideological spectrum in Washington and their home states are calling on Bankhead and Beaudion to step down to help their party bank-shot a Senate majority, with the idea that a victorious independent candidate could caucus with a future Democratic majority — or at least not party up with Republicans.
“The math is inescapable. If it’s impossible for a Democrat to win, it is vital that the Democrats step aside and give the independent at least a shot of beating the Republican,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. “Beating the MAGA Republicans is priorities one, two and three. Who we beat them with is pretty far down the list.”
Democrats have already had some luck setting up one-on-one independent vs. Republican matchups in other Trump-won states. The Democratic candidate in Nebraska withdrew to pave the way for independent Dan Osborn — though an ongoing court case from a Democratic anti-abortion pastor could complicate things. And Idaho’s Democratic nominee recently dropped out in favor of independent Todd Achilles.
“Knowing that your campaign is not gonna break through, and just being able to recognize that is probably the hardest thing of all,” Achilles said of Democrat David Roth’s decision to step down. “I do appreciate what David did in Idaho.”
Bankhead and Beaudion insist they can win, even despite the headwinds. Bankhead expects to ride the anti-incumbency and pro-outsider wave into office, and Beaudion credits his relationships with voters throughout the state.
“Nobody ever knows what’s actually going to happen in an election,” Bankhead said. “The people decide on November 3.”
But Idaho and Nebraska Democrats reached a conclusion that Bankhead and Beaudion did not: The party’s brand is so tarnished in their states that the “D” label on the ballot line provides no viable path to victory.
“I am a professional partisan Democrat, and I have every incentive to be on the Democrat’s side here,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition-research firm. “But ultimately, the priority is to take the Senate majority away from Republicans. In some states, that path is very difficult to impossible for a Democrat. In those cases, it is both strategically and morally correct to take the path that is most likely to achieve the goal we’re going for.”
Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), did not go as far as to call for Bankhead and Beaudion to step aside. But he agreed that there’s real opportunity for independents who aren’t stuck with the Democratic brand’s baggage.
“Being someone who’s not associated with the two-party system right now helps you greatly in many parts of this country, particularly those that have much more rural and conservative tendencies,” said Shakir. “There’s frustration and anger with Trump, and there’s not as much of a love and appreciation for the Democratic Party.”
Shakir also said that competitive races in these red areas — even if the independents can’t pull off a win — could force Republicans to pull much-needed resources out of battleground races in order to defend their turf.
But he also offered a warning to his party: Talking too much about the independents’ strong fundraising and establishment backing risks tying them to the “donor class” and turning them “into a worse version of what people assumed of a Democrat.”
“You gotta give them the space to be both independent in mind and in spirit,” he said. “The argument for them is truly that they are building a movement in the state that people are hungry for, and that in the support of those people, they’re finding resonance. And that would be the argument for a Democrat to step aside.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are working to paint the independents and Democrats as one and the same. They’re also trying to elevate the Democrats in an attempt to stop the independents from gaining more traction: Trump on social media attacked Bankhead in July, ignoring Bodnar entirely.
“Democrat-backed independents all support the same socialist policies and middle-class tax hikes that made Democrats toxic across the country,” Joanna Rodriguez, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans will defeat them in November.”
The inside calls for Beaudion and Bankhead to step aside aren’t just coming from Washington. Many local Democrats in Montana and South Dakota have said publicly they should not continue their campaigns. Nancy Keenan, the former executive director of the Montana Democratic Party who has endorsed Bodnar, wrote in a June op-ed that “there is not a viable path for a Democratic victory in this race.”
Bennett, the Third Way co-founder, went further, saying if Democrats fail to flip the Senate in November, the blame would lie at the hands of Bankhead and Beaudion.
“If we fumble away a majority because these no hope candidates are too vain to get out of the race, that’ll be a political calamity,” he said. “These people need to understand that they will become pariahs.”
Bankhead doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m not swayed by it because I’m not here for power and money,” she said. “It’s still the old, rich D.C. powerful political circles that are trying to keep more progressive candidates out of the fight so they can maintain the status quo.”
FCC chair Brendan Carr on Trump, free speech and his threats against broadcasters
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Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and his team are discussing dropping out of the crowded Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The conversations come as Democratic officials in the state brace for damaging media reports about Barnes expected to hit in the coming hours. Barnes and his team have been on calls Thursday to discuss how to proceed, according to the people, granted anonymity to share private details.
The primary had become increasingly messy as more moderate leaning Democrats like Barnes have tried to stave off Democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s rise, worried her victory could boost presumed Republican nominee Tom Tiffany. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement of David Crowley — who reentered the race in the final stretch — further complicated the moderate coalition.
A spokesperson for Barnes’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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