A crop of insurgent progressives ended the midterm primary season with a spotty record against candidates who had the backing of establishment Democrats as the party fears losing its congressional majorities to a Republican wave.
In a number of key races that became proxy wars between the party’s left flank and its state and national leaders, progressive candidates lost to the mainstream ones, particularly in competitive districts.
While a handful of insurgent candidates notched victories in Democratic primaries, the record suggests voters often shied away from the most liberal candidates during what’s expected to be a difficult cycle for Democrats.
Progressive and establishment figures weren’t always on opposite sides of this year’s primaries; in fact, in many top races, Democratic leadership and the party’s leftmost members endorsed the same candidates in efforts to shore up support against Republicans.
Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist, said the losses don’t speak to the progressive wing’s ascendancy over time and noted that economic concerns weighed heavily on the minds of voters.
“I agree with progressive leaders who emphasize that seeds are being planted for progressive victories in the long term,” Sefl told the Washington Examiner. “In the short term, voters, of course, have deep concerns about the economy and will be swayed by who can most capably address them.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has personally waded into a handful of races that pitted her directly against the establishment wing of her party, and she hasn’t always been successful.
Perhaps the highest-profile defeat for Ocasio-Cortez — a member of the so-called “Squad,” a group of prominent House progressives — came last month in New York’s 17th Congressional District.
Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Alessandra Biaggi, a liberal state senator, in a battle against the head of the Democrats’ campaign arm, Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY).
Maloney’s decision to run in the newly redrawn 17th District drew the ire of House progressives because it effectively pushed out Rep. Mondaire Jones, the Democrat who represented the district before the state’s map shifted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) endorsed Maloney in the contest. Jones also lost his primary after choosing to run for reelection in a different district with the backing of several progressive groups.
Pelosi also emerged victorious over Ocasio-Cortez in a South Texas primary this summer.
Ocasio-Cortez campaigned aggressively for Jessica Cisneros, a progressive immigration attorney, when Cisneros challenged Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) in a primary fight that dragged out into a runoff.
Pelosi stood by Cuellar, while Ocasio-Cortez and others took aim at his centrist positions on abortion and immigration.
Cuellar won by fewer than 300 votes in the runoff.
Ocasio-Cortez’s pick for New York lieutenant governor — her first statewide endorsement, according to the New York Times — did not prevail over sitting Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who was appointed to the position in May.
Ana Maria Archila, an activist backed by Ocasio-Cortez and fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), lost to Delgado in June after the incumbent lieutenant governor outspent her significantly on the airwaves and notched other key endorsements that bolstered his credentials.
The race to replace retiring Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) in North Carolina saw progressive-backed candidate Erica Smith lose convincingly to Don Davis, a Democratic primary opponent who secured the endorsement of Butterfield and U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
Smith had the backing of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a leading Senate liberal.
In an Ohio congressional primary in May, Nina Tuner lost for the second time against Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) after losing to Brown last year in a special election to fill the seat.
Ocasio-Cortez had endorsed Turner, the former co-chairwoman of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, in the primary as Brown campaigned for a full term to represent Ohio’s 11th District.
Brown was seen as the more establishment-friendly Democrat.
Progressive leaders who waded into primaries did notch some victories, however.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cori Bush (D-MO), Bowman, and Ocasio-Cortez — the entire membership of the Squad — backed Summer Lee in the primary for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District.
Lee, a state senator and liberal organizer, defeated a well-funded centrist challenger, Steve Irwin, in the high-dollar primary.
Progressives, including Jayapal, also backed Michelle Vallejo in the primary for Texas’s 15th Congressional District. Vallejo campaigned on a liberal platform on issues such as healthcare and will take on Republican Monica De La Cruz, who came close to unseating the previous incumbent just two years ago.
The progressive movement has gained momentum in the past several cycles, enjoying a groundswell brought on by the mass popularity of Sanders’s two presidential campaigns.
Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory in a 2018 Democratic primary sparked a movement to put more diverse and progressive candidates in contests against well-established Democrats.
Fears about electability could be driving primary voters away from some left-wing candidates they think Republicans would beat more easily in a general election.
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Many of the most vulnerable Democrats have worked to distance themselves from the far-left positions held by the kind of candidates backed by the Squad and other progressive figures.
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), for example, has threaded the needle on the movement to include more liberal curricula in schools. He defended parents’ right to weigh in against material they find inappropriate and even acknowledged their concerns about allowing the “woke police” into schools.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) has avoided hot-button progressive issues and has even opposed positions held by the mainstream of his party. He voted against the American Rescue Plan and the Build Back Better bill, and he openly criticized President Joe Biden’s move to cancel student debt.
