Bernie Sanders is back in the Senate after his stinging defeat by Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. But the Vermont senator is still trying to exert political clout on the campaign trail, just further down the ballot.
Sanders and other hard-core leftists, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, have endorsed a slew of Senate and House candidates. Their high-profile support is helping congressional hopefuls who may have otherwise been overlooked by the Democratic establishment. Yet, the trio’s public backing also stress tests their own political capital’s weight during an election cycle marred by liberal disappointments.
Democratic primary contenders, such as New York’s Jamaal Bowman and Kentucky’s Charles Booker, for instance, have benefited from last-minute boosts in the closing weeks of their primary bids against Rep. Eliot Engel of New York and Amy McGrath of Kentucky, respectively.
Engel, 73, is a House lawmaker who’s represented the northern Bronx and southern Westchester County for the past 31 years. He’s the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat as well. In contrast, McGrath, 45, is a former Marine fighter pilot who ran a high-profile, but losing race, two years ago against Republican Rep. Andy Barr in central Kentucky. She’s now trying to topple Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
What the pair do have in common is they’re in the throes of tough contests against Bowman, 44, an ex-Bronx middle school principal, and Booker, 35, Kentucky’s youngest black state legislator, ahead of their June 23 elections. And their uphill climbs are taking place against the political headwinds of incumbency and the desire for diversity in Washington, D.C., after George Floyd’s death in police custody.
Data for Progress polling this week suggests Bowman, for one, is 10 percentage points ahead of Engel, 41% to 31%, though 27% remain undecided. Rutgers University history and journalism professor David Greenberg, however, doesn’t believe Bowman’s projected win means there’s a national shift toward fringe liberalism.
“For several years it’s been clear that younger Democrats are trending leftward, creating tensions and rifts in the party. Biden’s primary victory hasn’t healed these rifts,” Greenberg told the Washington Examiner. “But I wouldn’t conclude that the far-left is ascendant.”
He added, “They may be gaining ground, but not nearly as fast or as thoroughly as many people seem to think.”
Greenberg pointed to liberal candidate recruitment organization Justice Democrats. Most of their anointed hopefuls have lost. Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar defended himself against insurgent Jessica Cisneros, a 27-year-old immigration attorney, in his southern border district, for example. While Illinois’s Marie Newman beat Dan Lipinski in Chicago’s southwest, Greenberg described Newman, a former advertising executive, as “not all that far to the left.”
“In 2018, more new Democratic members of Congress joined groups like the New Democratic Coalition and the Blue Dogs than joined the Progressive Caucus,” he said. “Not a single ‘progressive’ challenger in 2018 flipped a seat; only two, AOC and Ayanna Pressley, ousted incumbent Democrats.”
Yet, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s emergence as a Biden vice presidential front-runner, with California Sen. Kamala Harris and Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice, could be seen as evidence of her and Sanders’s persistent influence. Greenberg disagrees.
“I would be surprised if she gets the VP nod. But remember — she has been pitching herself not as a hard-left ‘progressive’ but as a ‘unity’ figure broadly acceptable to different constituencies in the party,” he countered. “Meanwhile, Harris, Val Demings, and Keisha Lance Bottoms are all liberal, but far from the Justice Democrats-Sanders profile.”
For University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and Elections Research Center director Barry Burden, Bowman and Booker’s campaigns prove progressive causes weren’t “going anywhere,” regardless of whether centrist Biden prevailed in the White House primary.
“There is still a sense among some party activists that Democrats missed an opportunity in 2016 by nominating a moderate establishment candidate. They wish to not merely reprise the Obama years, but to go beyond what was accomplished, then to pursue many of the ideas articulated by Sanders,” he said.
Burden was more bullish on Warren’s veepstakes prospects as “an important bridge” between the far- and center-left. She could drive turnout among Democrats who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton last election season, he said.
“Among the women who sought the party’s nomination, she went the farthest. And there was an ongoing respect between Warren and Sanders on the campaign trail, so she might be seen as at least partly carrying the mantel of the Sanders movement,” he continued.
Key Democrats, such as Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have rallied around embattled Engel after Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise upset win over then-No. 4 House Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York initially withheld his support from Engel, complaining that he was “taking no risks.” Yet, Schumer changed his mind Wednesday.
Engel’s biggest blow so far, however, has been self-inflicted. He was caught on a hot mic asking for the chance to speak to a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters because of his primary.
“If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” he said.
State and city newspapers have backed both Bowman and Booker.
Booker, a first-term state representative, is surging after his response to the civil unrest over racial injustice in his hometown of Louisville, though he’s being out-fundraised and out-spent by McGrath. He’s rumored to be trailing by double-digits, too, according to internal polls.
Booker has portrayed McGrath as a milquetoast centrist, ignoring how a moderate may be more electable in the ruby-red state. Instead, he’s touted liberal policies online, including the Green New Deal and “Medicare for all.”
