Attacks that dredge up calls to defund the police, full-throated embraces of identity politics and more, born from the leftward lurch Democrats took during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, won\u2019t be what voters are thinking about come November, they say.<\/p>\n

Rather, candidates say a populist economic message that addresses affordability concerns will buoy them to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can talk about my tweets if you want to, but you can\u2019t afford your health care, you can\u2019t afford your groceries, you can\u2019t afford your housing,\u201d Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed said in an interview. \u201cAnd it\u2019s because of Donald Trump\u2019s absurd policies.”<\/p>\n

The defensive tactic popular among progressive candidates represents a new path being forged by Democrats still haunted by a disastrous presidential election, which some blame on the party\u2019s unwillingness to distance itself from progressive positions on trans rights, policing and other issues that alienated moderate voters.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve largely leaned into their outspokenness, past and present, in the hopes that voters will appreciate their authenticity. But their moderate opponents are less convinced, fearing potential losses if primary voters give Republicans a candidate with obvious weaknesses.<\/p>\n

The border between which past comments must be acknowledged \u2014 or fully apologized for \u2014 and which can be cleanly pivoted away from remains fuzzy. Broadly, however, progressive candidates are dismissing attacks on their past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to 400-plus public events, and nobody\u2019s ever asked me about my tweets,\u201d El-Sayed said.<\/p>\n

However, Roxie Richner, spokesperson for the campaign, said El-Sayed deleted all posts older than July of 2023 \u201cto prevent any old posts from being taken out of context\u201d and that the deletion did not target any specific topic.<\/p>\n

Which former comments must be atoned for differs by primary. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, for one, has walked back some of his most outspoken comments calling God nonbinary and lamenting the privilege his whiteness affords him, admitting in interviews<\/a> that those comments were \u201ccringey.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in a Democratic stronghold in New York City, Darializa Avila Chevalier was able to pivot around attacks on her calls to abolish prisons on the way to ousting longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.).<\/p>\n

She did, however, express regret for some old posts<\/a>, including ones in which she wrote \u201cfuck Kamala Harris\u201d and called Joe Biden a \u201crapist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill Neidhardt, a Democratic strategist at the progressive consulting firm Middle Seat, said that while it\u2019s not like \u201cthere\u2019s never room to apologize,\u201d a candidate refusing to entertain attacks on their progressive past can work remarkably well among voters itching for an outsider candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I see an incumbent focusing on tweets and not about the economy, I feel like my campaign is in the place where I want it to be,\u201d said Neidhardt, whose firm has worked for progressives including Avila Chevalier, El-Sayed and Melat Kiros \u2014 a democratic socialist who recently toppled 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed, for one, has repeatedly emphasized that he isn\u2019t interested in litigating the past \u2014 which opponents have sought to do over his since-deleted 2020 posts<\/a> lamenting that police departments are overfunded relative to other social services and referring to them as \u201cstanding armies.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told Blue Light News that \u201cthe idea that you stand by everything you ever said, out of context, is an insane thing to assume about anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

But El-Sayed’s shifting recollection of the past has put him in bind. After telling the Detroit News that he \u201cactually never, never called for defunding,\u201d CNN reported that he said<\/a> \u201cwe do need to defund the police\u201d in a June 2020 interview with Detroit Public Radio. In that interview, the former health official said that he considered defunding to mean reducing funding for prisons and police while investing more in \u201cthe means of educating and empowering, engaging communities with the means of being able to take on systemic poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed has characterized such reporting as superfluous to the actual issues present in the campaign.<\/p>\n

In an interview with BLN, El-Sayed was skeptical of the newsworthiness of the coverage: \u201cI think this debate about 2020 and the ways that tweets are going to play are really nice on BLN if you want to get clicks.\u201d And after BLN reported that he did in fact say \u201cdefund the police,\u201d a campaign spokesperson told the outlet that El-Sayed\u2019s \u201cperspective has become more nuanced\u201d since 2020.<\/p>\n

When opponents and media dig up past comments, Neidhardt says he tells his candidates to keep their eyes on the ball, \u201cand the ball is pocketbook politics, it\u2019s not whoever is looking most proper for the Washington set.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey care about whether someone’s gonna fight for them,\u201d Neidhardt said of voters.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a philosophy mirrored in another progressive upstart in Wisconsin: gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong \u2014 a democratic socialist state representative that has faced similar critiques over a slew of social media posts calling to abolish the police<\/a>. She is leading in most recent primary polls<\/a>.<\/p>\n