Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., conceded before the race was even officially called. That’s unusual for a 10-term incumbent, but Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley clearly bested him, winning nearly 59 percent of the vote.
It could be a sign something unusual is afoot inside the Democratic Party this year. Women candidates have fared well in the primaries. Liberals have also scored some upsets against the party establishment. The Tea Party arguably started in Massachusetts when Republican Scott Brown claimed Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat in a 2010 special election — eight years later, are we witnessing a Tea Party of the Left?
Many progressive organizations and allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would like it to be so. The results are more complicated, however. Just look at Massachusetts: Three Democratic incumbents faced progressive primary challengers but only Capuano lost.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., trounced Tahirah Amatul-Wadud — a progressive Muslim woman — by a nearly 71-29 margin. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., beat video game developer Brianna Wu 71-23. Lynch even had a conservative past: He voted against Obamacare on final passage and used to oppose legal abortion.
Capuano has few such votes to his name. He voted with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 90 percent of the time. Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, and the League of Conservation Voters all gave him positive marks, as high as 100 percent. The website VoteView ranked him the 15th most liberal member of the House, ahead of progressive stalwart Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and 17 spots higher than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Like the Tea Party on the Right, attitude can be as important as ideology. This is especially true when so many rank-and-file Democrats are angry and afraid under President Trump. But the Massachusetts experience isn’t exactly atypical: Plenty of establishment Democrats have beaten back progressive challengers this cycle, too.
Against Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., challenger Kevin de Leon won 11 percent of the vote and barely scraped into the general election despite the support of the “Bernie wing” of the party in the Golden State’s nonpartisan “jungle” primary. “When California Democrats voted, they thought, ‘Hey what’s going on here? [Feinstein] has been a leader in the Senate on environmental issues, she’s been a leader in the Senate on the Russian investigation,’” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “I think basically California voters who were pretty liberal said, ‘She’s a pretty liberal United States senator. And so why she would we toss her out?’”
“There’s all kinds of talk among the progressives that it’s time for change, time for a fresh, young face, and I think California voters said, ‘Hey, she cares about all the issues we’re concerned about — climate change, the Russian investigation and so on, and so there was no compelling reason for Democrats to dump her,” Bannon added.
The opposite happened in New York’s 14th Congressional District where Rep. Joe Crowley — a rising star considered to have one of the best chances of replacing Pelosi as Democratic leader — was upset in his primary by 28-year-old, socialist first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has since become a star in her own right.
“It was less than three weeks until Primary Day and, on first blush, the poll that Rep. Joseph Crowley had been shown by his team of advisers was encouraging: He led his upstart rival, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by 36 percentage points,” Shane Goldmacher wrote in the New York Times. “It was the last poll Mr. Crowley’s campaign would conduct.”
Similarly, a poll released a little over a month before the election showed Capuano leading Pressley by double digits. It was nevertheless apparent to the veteran Democrat something was very wrong early Tuesday night.
But it hasn’t been all good news for the candidates preferred by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Pete D’Alessandro lost in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Cathy Glasson lost in the state’s gubernatorial primary. Brent Welder, who had worked on the Sanders presidential campaign, lost a primary for a potentially competitive House seat in Kansas. Abdul El-Sayed, for whom both socialist sensations campaigned, was beaten by 20 points in the Michigan Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Even the relatively conservative, anti-abortion Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., squeaked by in his primary over determined progressive opposition.
“It’s wrong or mistaken to just assume that the fire that the Sanders revolution brought in 2016 was going to be able to be replicated in 2018 when Sanders isn’t on the national ballot,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau. “And I don’t just say that for Bernie. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Political parties have been trying to catch lightning in a bottle for years and found sometimes that coattails and/or what was popular in one cycle doesn’t necessarily equate to other members of your party.”
Progressives bounced back when Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum took to the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida. Gillum has since narrowly led his Republican opponent, Rep. Ron DeSantis, in most public polls. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat with many progressive detractors, announced this week he won’t be seeking re-election.
Florida is a battleground state. Democrats are trying to make nearby Georgia, where progressive Stacey Abrams easily won the party’s gubernatorial primary, one too. But a lot of the big progressive wins have come in safe Democratic areas. Pressley, an African-American, and Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina, won in majority-minority districts. Tea Party challengers won in some safely Republican areas, such as when Mike Lee toppled Sen. Robert Bennett in Utah in 2010. But they also cost Republicans Senate pickups in blue states like Delaware and even put up weak candidates in more conservative states, such as Missouri and Indiana.
Another difference with the Tea Party is that establishment Democrats have adapted faster than did their Republican counterparts. They have embraced things like expanding Medicare coverage and abolishing, or at least reforming, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, when facing tough primary challenges.
“What we’re finding is that the Sanders revolution is pushing candidates to take more progressive stances where those stances are accepted by voters,” Mollineau said. “You can’t compare Queens and West Virginia.”
The battle for the direction of the party isn’t over. On Thursday, Kerri Evelyn Harris will try to primary Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. Later this month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — son of a liberal legend — will square off against progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon.
