2026-06-21T10:30:27.677Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/21/politics/democratic-primary-election-new-york-mamdani-platner-analysis
- 今年的民主党初选已演变为党内进步派与温和派派系之间的较量。
- 总体而言，进步派候选人赢得的席位更多，尤其是在民主党安全席位和市长选举中。
- 温和派民主党人在多场州长选举中获胜，包括新泽西州和加利福尼亚州，他们在这两州击败了进步派挑战者。
本文由AI生成摘要，并经CNN编辑审核。
争夺民主党执政方向的斗争今年已达到新的高潮，周二举行的纽约州初选将成为左翼与温和派对决的下一个主要战场。
从缅因州到加利福尼亚州，进步派与温和派势力在地方、州级和国会席位的初选中发生碰撞，其数量之多甚至前所未有，导致民主党在意识形态甚至代际层面出现分裂。
“党的正式组织结构正在削弱，外部团体的影响力却越来越大，”支持民主党温和派的组织Welcome的联合创始人利亚姆·克尔说道，这一观点也得到了许多进步派活动人士的认同。“我们之前从未见过这样的局面：整个团体生态系统实际上在党内运作各自的政党，进行明确、直接的派系斗争。”
这些对抗并未让任何一方取得压倒性胜利。左翼助力格雷厄姆·普拉特纳赢得缅因州参议院提名，佐赫兰·曼达尼赢得纽约市市长职位；而温和派则为加利福尼亚州州长候选人哈维尔·贝塞拉和爱荷华州参议院候选人乔希·图雷克的初选胜利欢呼。
但总体而言，左翼迄今在这些竞选中占据上风——如果预计纽约州多由曼达尼背书的国会候选人获胜，这一优势还将进一步扩大。“今年对进步派候选人和进步运动来说是标志性的一年，”由参议员伯尼·桑德斯创立的政治组织“我们的革命”执行主任约瑟夫·吉瓦格塞说道。“我们看到了大量的基层选举热情。”
从很多方面来看，左翼今年的成功重演了唐纳德·特朗普总统第一任期时的情况：当时民主党国会领导层未能有效抵制特朗普，由此引发的不满推动了2018年众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科特茨以及左翼“四人帮”其他三名成员的当选。
“当特朗普真正执政，民主党选民对本党阻止他的能力更加不满时，他们会更倾向于左翼路线，”与艾米·沃尔特合作的《库克政治报告》高级政治分析师戴维·瓦瑟曼说道。“2018年是‘四人帮’首次崛起，而如今我们看到其影响力在扩张，扩张程度甚至超过了中间年份，这并非巧合。”
但民主党温和派有理由指出，成功当选的进步派初选候选人大多在民主党安全席位中获胜。在将决定参众两院控制权的竞争席位中，民主党仍主要依靠温和派候选人。而对于这些候选人来说，左翼在安全席位中的崛起甚至可能成为不受欢迎的麻烦。
“在民主党安全的众议院选区获胜和在全国范围内具备竞争力是两码事，这就是党内的紧张关系所在，”曾担任众议院议长南希·佩洛西办公厅主任的约翰·劳伦斯说道。
民主党一直是由不同甚至对立派系组成的联盟。但如今民主党初选中左翼与温和派之间的制度化冲突程度前所未有。乔治敦大学历史学家、《民主党取胜的代价》一书作者迈克尔·卡津表示，左右两派团体之间的这些代理战反映出正式的州级和国家级党组织影响力的下降。“它们基本上就是个空壳，所以每个人都可以带着自己的组织、资金和支持者介入其中，”卡津说道。“如今这些斗争比以往更能代表整个政党。”
双方都认为，左翼开展这场斗争的基础设施更为完善。包括桑德斯的“我们的革命”、与参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦有关联的进步变革竞选委员会、精神上最接近奥卡西奥-科特茨及“四人帮”其他成员的正义民主党人，以及由枪支管制活动家大卫·霍格创立的“我们应得的领袖”等团体，已经构建起一套完整的机制，用于识别、招募、培训和资助左翼候选人。
吉瓦格塞表示，今年初选中左翼的成功在很多情况下代表着多年来对年轻公职人员支持和投入的成果。“这些候选人并非凭空出现——其中很多人曾参选低级别公职并积累了执政经验，如今正在升级，”他说道。“你能看到进步运动正在成熟。”
温和派团体——包括与Welcome相关的政治行动委员会、众议院的“蓝狗”和“新民主党”派系，以及新近成立的“多数民主党人”组织——并未建立起如此强大的制度力量。“差距何止一点，”克尔说道。“现代激进左翼实际上已经自成一个政党。”
这种能力上的不平衡意味着进步派团体介入的初选数量远多于温和派。但自特朗普重新执政以来，双方都能指出各自的重大胜利。
左翼的几场最大胜利来自市长选举：去年纽约州的民主社会主义者曼达尼和西雅图的凯蒂·威尔逊击败了温和派民主党人；在洛杉矶，进步派市议员尼提亚·拉曼进入了11月的大选，将与市长凯伦·巴斯对决。在华盛顿特区，民主社会主义者简尼斯·刘易斯·乔治上周赢得了民主党市长初选，基本上确保了她在11月的当选。
民主党温和派在州长选举中表现最佳。去年，米基·谢里尔在击败进步派初选挑战者后成功当选新泽西州州长；在纽约州，州长凯西·霍楚尔在左翼挑战来自其副州长的挑战尚未成形时就将其挫败。在缅因州的排名选择投票中，汉娜·平格里上周击败了两位略比她左翼的候选人（以及两位略比她右翼的候选人），赢得州长提名。最引人注目的是，本月加利福尼亚州州长初选中，前众议员贝塞拉击败了汤姆·斯泰尔——后者自掏腰包斥资超过2亿美元，以类似亿万富翁版伯尼·桑德斯的身份参选。
“加州民主党选民绝大多数想要的是一位‘正常的’反特朗普斗士，”曾为支持贝塞拉的独立支出竞选工作的民主党策略家肖恩·克莱格说道。“我们不想以维持现状的政党形象参选，但（选民们说），‘给我一个能稳住中间立场的人’。这很难被击败。”
进步派赢得了迄今最受关注的参议院初选，在缅因州，牡蛎农场主普拉特纳击败了民主党参议院竞选委员会支持的州长珍妮特·米尔斯。与此相反，温和派乔希·图雷克在爱荷华州的初选中果断击败了进步派热门人选扎克·瓦尔兹。（在德克萨斯州，候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科相比其对手众议员贾斯敏·克罗克特略微偏向中间派，但意识形态界限并不分明。）尚未进行的参议院左右对决包括8月在明尼苏达州（进步派副州长佩吉·弗拉根略微占优）和密歇根州（进步派阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德与温和派黑利·史蒂文斯势均力敌）；以及9月在马萨诸塞州的竞选（温和派众议员赛斯·莫尔顿正挑战自由派参议员埃德·马基，形势不利）。
众议院选举的结果整体上偏向左翼。温和派在加利福尼亚州、德克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州的众议院竞选中击败了进步派。但仅在加利福尼亚州，进步派就在多场关键众议院竞选中胜出——包括击败了建制派支持的候选人，获得了挑战脆弱共和党众议员戴维·瓦拉达奥的资格。进步派候选人还在新泽西州、蒙大拿州、缅因州、俄亥俄州和宾夕法尼亚州的众议院初选激烈竞争中获胜，这些选区原本可能被认为并不利于他们参选。
“我不认为我们正在看到一场‘伯尼式民主党人’革命，但我们看到民主党基础的愤怒情绪有所上升，这导致进步派在出人意料的地方获胜，”瓦瑟曼说道。
进步派很可能在周二的纽约州初选中取得更多胜利。曼达尼背书了三位极为自由派的众议院候选人，其中包括前纽约市审计官布拉德·兰德，他似乎很有可能击败众议员丹尼尔·高德曼。在附近的选区，曼达尼的另一位人选、民主社会主义者达里亚利扎·阿维拉·谢瓦利尔面临着更艰难的挑战，试图推翻众议员阿德里亚诺·埃斯皮利亚特。一位支持者表示，如果谢瓦利尔获胜，她可能会立即成为“国会中最左翼的议员”。
今年的进步派候选人有着几个共同的政策主张。几乎所有人都支持桑德斯风格的“全民医保”计划，即接管美国医疗体系，以及沃伦风格的财富税。几乎所有人都呼吁废除并取代美国移民和海关执法局。
值得注意的是，进步派候选人强调经济议题，大多淡化了极具争议的社会问题讨论。“候选人真正在谈论民众的物质需求，并誓言要为提高他们的生活水平而斗争，”吉瓦格塞说道。
克尔也同意，将竞选重点集中在经济议题上——这更贴近桑德斯首次总统竞选时的信息传递——是左翼今年取得成功的核心。进步派候选人“与2022年的表现不同，”他说道。“他们更像2016年的伯尼·桑德斯：高度的经济民粹主义，少谈‘觉醒’议题。”
今年进步派候选人最看重的非经济议题无疑是以色列对加沙的战争，以及支持以色列的强大美国政治游说团体美国以色列公共事务委员会（AIPAC）。几乎在所有地方，主流民主党人都难以辩护自己接受了AIPAC的支持，或拒绝打破前总统乔·拜登在以色列轰炸加沙期间对其的默许态度。
其中一些左翼立场——比如批评以色列在加沙的行动以及拜登的应对措施——显然代表了民主党内部的共识。几乎没有人质疑，在经济议题上，民主党官员和选民都已转向更民粹主义的立场。“毫无疑问，如今的民主党在经济方面比希拉里·克林顿时代更接近伯尼·桑德斯的政党，”领导研究公众舆论深层趋势的“蓝图”项目的民主党民调专家埃文·罗斯·史密斯说道。
但史密斯和其他更接近党内温和派的策略师表示，如果民主党人得出结论，认为初选选民甚至摇摆选民都希望民主党像进步派候选人所敦促的那样大幅左倾，那将是一个危险的错误。
史密斯认为，左翼之所以成功，主要是因为他们似乎更坚定地不惜一切代价对抗特朗普。“他们向选民展示了自己信念的坚定程度……这是建制派政党和现任官员无法做到的，”史密斯说道。“这才是选民最认可的，而非任何政治意识形态。”
民主党策略家利斯·史密斯正在为温和派组织“多数民主党人”以及致力于招募多元化背景民主党候选人的团体“班奇”提供咨询。她也认为，民主党选民更看重新的执政方式，而非意识形态热情。
民主党选民，她说道，“觉得民主党脱离群众，年纪太大，不愿斗争，也不知道如何赢得选举，所以最终他们抛弃了传统民主党候选人的行事准则。”在深蓝选区，这种倾向推动了对左翼候选人的支持，她说道，“但在更多摇摆选区，这意味着那些没有传统政治履历的人。”史密斯补充道，在这两类席位中，“我认为到目前为止，建制派阵营的实力可能是几十年来最弱的。”
左右两派都承认，要对民主党内部斗争做出最终评判，要等到大选结束之后。虽然大多数进步派候选人在民主党安全的众议院席位初选中获胜，但其中一些人在竞争激烈的席位中获得了提名——包括瓦拉达奥的众议院席位、特朗普获胜的缅因州农村众议院选区，以及普拉特纳与共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯对决的缅因州参议院竞选。
如果进步派候选人在这些大选中失利，将强化温和派的论点：左翼推出的候选人在竞争激烈的选区无法获胜，从而削弱了民主党整体实力。
更难量化但同样对最终评判至关重要的是，左翼提名人数增加如何影响民主党温和派的选举前景。民调专家埃文·史密斯指出，共和党今年在民主党初选中投入了大量资金，以推动进步派候选人参选——部分原因是他们可以利用这些候选人在摇摆选区负面定义民主党，即使这些选区的候选人是温和派。
民主党人对2026年初选之战的最终评判很可能会影响到2028年的选情。2018年竞选结束后，“四人帮”的当选让党内广泛认为，民主党要在2020年击败特朗普，最好的方式就是用大胆的进步派议程对抗特朗普的极化议程。
这一信念在2020年民主党总统初选初期将政党路线大幅向左拉。尽管存在成本高昂的担忧，但多名候选人都支持单一支付者医保计划，几乎所有候选人都在辩论台上表态支持极为自由的移民政策。
但当2020年投票开始后，民主党初选选民——尤其是南卡罗来纳州的黑人选民——越来越担心这种路线无法击败特朗普，并转而支持那个最不倾向于左倾、看起来最具 electability（胜选可能性）的候选人：拜登。
“我毫不怀疑左翼会……宣称自己是执政党中占主导地位的派系，2028年将有总统候选人感到有必要大幅向左靠拢，”曾在2020年为皮特·布蒂吉格提供咨询的利斯·史密斯说道。但她继续说道，民主党潜在候选人应该“吸取2020年的教训”：“在深蓝选区和社交媒体上表现出色的策略，并不总能赢得选举，甚至不一定能在选民基础中获得最佳支持。”
在 reliably blue（深蓝）地区，民主党初选选民可以支持最左翼的候选人，而不必担心他们能否在大选中获胜。但在将决定国会控制权的竞选——更不用说下一届总统提名——中，即使是许多自由派民主党选民也会在支持进步派议程与优先选择能够击败特朗普及其“让美国再次伟大”盟友的候选人之间权衡利弊。对民主党人来说，在最重要的竞选中，胜选可能性仍可能比意识形态更重要。
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How the 2026 primaries are reshaping the Democratic Party
2026-06-21T10:30:27.677Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/21/politics/democratic-primary-election-new-york-mamdani-platner-analysis
- Democratic primaries this year have become battles between progressive and centrist factions of the party.
- Progressive candidates are winning more races overall, especially in safe Democratic districts and mayoral contests.
- Centrist Democrats have prevailed in several governor’s races, including in New Jersey and California, where they defeated progressive challengers.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
The struggle over control of the Democratic Party’s direction has roared to new heights this year, with New York’s primary on Tuesday looming as the next major battlefield between left and center.
From Maine to California, progressive and centrist forces have collided in an unusual, even unprecedented, number of primaries for local, state and congressional offices that have divided the party along ideological, and often generational, lines.
“The formal party structure is getting weaker and outside groups are getting stronger,” said Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome, a group working to support Democratic centrists, in a judgment echoed by many progressive activists. “We have not been in a place (before) where entire ecosystems of groups are effectively running parties within the parties in explicit, direct, factional warfare.”
These confrontations have not produced a knockout victory for either side. The left has helped propel Graham Platner to the Senate nomination in Maine and Zohran Mamdani to the mayoralty in New York City, while centrists have cheered the primary successes of Xavier Becerra in the California governor’s race and Josh Turek in Iowa’s Senate contest.
On balance, though, the left so far has outpointed the center in these contests — an advantage it could widen if several Mamdani-endorsed congressional candidates win in New York, as is expected. “This has been a banner year for progressive candidates and the progressive movement,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, the political organization founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We’re seeing a lot of grassroots electoral energy.”
In many ways, the left’s success this year replays that of President Donald Trump’s first term, when frustration over the Democratic congressional leadership’s inability to more effectively resist him powered the 2018 victories of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other three members of the left-wing “Squad.”
“When President Trump is actually in office and Democratic voters are more frustrated with their party’s capabilities to block him, they go even further in the direction of the left,” said David Wasserman, senior political analyst for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. “It’s not coincidental that 2018 was the initial burst of the Squad and now we are seeing an expansion of it, to a degree we didn’t in the intervening years.”
But Democratic centrists correctly point out that a significant majority of the successful progressive primary candidates are winning in safely Democratic areas. In the competitive seats that will decide control of the House and Senate, the party still largely relies on moderate nominees. And for those candidates, the left’s rise even in safe seats could prove an unwelcome complication.
“There’s a difference between winning in a safe Democratic House district and being competitive nationally, and that’s the tension within the party,” said John Lawrence, who served as Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff while she was House speaker.
The Democratic Party has always been a coalition of disparate, even antagonistic factions. But the level of institutionalized conflict between left and center in Democratic primaries now is unprecedented. Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University historian and author of a history of the Democratic Party, “What It Took to Win,” said the rise of these proxy battles between groups on left and center reflects the declining influence of the formal state and national party organizations. “They are basically an empty shell, so everybody can jump in with their organization, their money and their supporters,” Kazin said. “These battles are the party, much more than they used to be.”
Both sides agree the infrastructure for waging this struggle is more developed on the left. Groups including Sanders’ Our Revolution, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (affiliated with Sen. Elizabeth Warren), Justice Democrats (in spirit closest to Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Squad), and Leaders We Deserve (founded by gun control activist David Hogg) have constructed a conveyor belt to identify, recruit, train and fund left-leaning candidates.
Geevarghese said the left’s success in this year’s primaries represents, in many cases, the culmination of years of support and investment in younger officeholders. “These are not candidates coming out of nowhere — a lot of these candidates have run for down-ballot offices and gained governing experience and are graduating up,” he said. “You are seeing the maturation of the progressive movement.”
Centrist groups — including the political action committees associated with Welcome, the “Blue Dog” and “New Democrat” factions in the House and the recently formed group Majority Democrats — have not built nearly as much institutional strength. “Not even close,” Kerr said. “The modern activist left is effectively its own political party.”
This imbalance in capacity means progressive groups have intervened in far more primaries than the centrists. But each side can point to significant wins since Trump returned to office.
Several of the left’s biggest victories have come in mayoral races, with democratic socialists Mamdani in New York and Katie Wilson in Seattle last year defeating centrist Democrats; in Los Angeles, progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman has reached this November’s general election against Mayor Karen Bass. In Washington, DC, democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George last week won the Democratic primary for mayor, which essentially guarantees her election in November.
The centrist Democrats have performed best in governor contests. Mikie Sherrill soundly beat a progressive primary challenger en route to winning the New Jersey governorship last year; in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul quashed a left-flank challenge from her lieutenant governor before it ever got going. In Maine’s ranked choice voting, Hannah Pingree last week beat two candidates somewhat to her left (and two somewhat to her right)for the gubernatorial nomination.Most dramatically, California’s gubernatorial primary this month, former Rep. Becerra bested Tom Steyer, who spent over $200 million of his own money running as a sort of billionaire Bernie.
“What the California Democratic electorate overwhelmingly wanted is a normie Trump fighter,” said Democratic strategist Sean Clegg, who worked on an independent expenditure campaign backing Becerra. “We don’t want to run as the party of the status quo, but (voters said), ‘Give me someone who will hold the center.’ And it was hard to beat.”
Progressives won the highest-profile Senate primary so far, in Maine, when Platner, an oyster farmer, routed Gov. Janet Mills, the choice of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Conversely, centrist Josh Turek, decisively beat progressive favorite Zach Wahls in Iowa. (In Texas, nominee James Talarico arguably angled somewhat more to the center than his opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, but the ideological lines weren’t nearly as sharp.) Still to come are left vs. center Senate showdowns in August in Minnesota (where progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is slightly favored) and Michigan (where progressive Abdul El-Sayed and centrist Haley Stevens are closely matched); and a September race in Massachusetts (where centrist Rep. Seth Moulton is running uphill against liberal Sen. Ed Markey).
The results in House races tip the overall score toward the left. Centrists have beaten progressives in House races in California, Texas and North Carolina. But in California alone, progressives advanced in several other key House contests — including by beating an establishment-backed candidate for the right to oppose vulnerable Republican Rep. David Valadao. Progressive choices have also won hotly contested House primary races in New Jersey, Montana, Maine, Ohio and Pennsylvania districts that might have seemed unfavorable terrain.
“I don’t think we are seeing a ‘Bernie-crat’ revolution, but we are seeing an uptick in anger among the Democratic base that is leading to progressive wins in unexpected places,” Wasserman said.
Progressives are likely to secure more wins in Tuesday’s New York primary. Mamdani has endorsed a slate of three very liberal House candidates, including former New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who appears likely to oust Rep. Daniel Goldman. In a nearby district, Democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier, another Mamdani pick, faces a tougher challenge to uproot Rep. Adriano Espaillat. One admirer has said that if Chevalier wins, she might instantly become “the most left-leaning member of Congress.”
Several common policy ideas link this year’s progressive candidates. Almost all of them support a Sanders-style Medicare for All takeover of the healthcare system and a Warren-style tax on wealth. Almost all call for abolishing and replacing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Notably, the progressive candidates are emphasizing economic themes and mostly minimizing their discussion of polarizing social issues. “Candidates are really speaking to people’s material needs and vowing to fight to improve their standard of living,” Geevarghese said.
Kerr agreed that a disciplined focus on economic issues — one that more closely echoes the messaging of Sanders’ first presidential run — has been central to the left’s successes this year. Progressive candidates, “are acting differently than they did in 2022,” he said. “They’ve been more like Bernie 2016 than Bernie 2020: high economic populism and low ‘woke.’”
By far, the most important non-economic issue for progressive candidates this year has been Israel’s war in Gaza, along with AIPAC, the powerful US political group supporting it. Almost everywhere, mainstream Democrats have struggled to defend having accepted support from AIPAC and/or having refused to break with former President Joe Biden’s deference to Israel while it razed Gaza.
Some of these left-wing positions — such as the criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and Biden’s response to it — clearly represent consensus views in the Democratic Party. And hardly anyone disputes that on economic issues, Democratic officials and voters alike have shifted toward more populist positions. “It is absolutely true that the Democratic Party of today is much more the party of Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton on the economic side,” said Democratic pollster Evan Roth Smith, who leads the Blueprint project, which studies underlying currents of public opinion.
But Smith and other strategists aligned more with the party center say it would be a dangerous mistake for Democrats to conclude that the primary electorate, much less swing voters, want the party to move as far left as progressive candidates urge.
Smith argued the left is succeeding primarily because it appears more determined to fight Trump by whatever means necessary. “They are demonstrating to voters the intensity of their convictions… in a way the establishment party and current officeholders are not credible on,” Smith said. “That is what the voters are rewarding more than any political ideology.”
Democratic strategist Lis Smith is advising the centrist Majority Democrats as well as the Bench, a group focused on recruiting Democratic candidates from diverse backgrounds. She, too, believes Democratic voters are looking more for new approaches than for ideological fervor.
Democratic voters, she said, “feel Democrats were out of touch, they were too old, they didn’t fight and they didn’t know how to win races, so the end result of that is they are throwing out the playbook for what a traditional Democratic candidate looks like.” In deep-blue districts, that impulse has propelled a turn toward left-leaning candidates, she said, “but in more swing districts it means people who don’t have a traditional political resume.” Across both kinds of seats, Smith added, “I think the through line thus far (is that) the establishment lane is the weakest it has probably been for decades.”
Left and center acknowledge it won’t be possible to render a final score on the Democrats’ internal struggle until after the general election. While most of the progressive candidates are winning in primaries for safely Democratic House seats, some have been nominated in highly competitive races — including the Valadao House seat, a rural Trump-won Maine House district, and the Maine Senate contest between Platner and Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
If progressive candidates lose those general elections, it will strengthen the centrist arguments that the left is weakening the party by running candidates who cannot win on competitive terrain.
Less easy to quantify but also critical to the final verdict will be assessments of how the increase in leftist nominees affects the electoral prospects of Democratic centrists. Evan Smith, the pollster, noted that Republicans have spent substantial sums in Democratic primaries this year to promote progressive candidates — in part so they can use them to negatively define the party even in swing districts where moderates are running.
The ultimate judgment among Democrats about 2026’s primary wars will likely ripple into 2028. After the 2018 campaign, the election of the Squad contributed to a widespread sense in the party that the best way for Democrats to beat Trump in 2020 was to match his polarizing agenda with a bold progressive agenda of their own.
That belief exerted a magnetic pull leftward during the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Multiple candidates endorsed a single-payer healthcare plan, despite concerns about its huge price tag, and almost all of them raised their hands on debate stages to embrace very liberal immigration policies.
But once the voting began in 2020, Democratic primary voters — particularly Black Democrats in South Carolina — grew increasingly concerned that approach would not beat Trump and rallied behind the candidate who had bent the least to that pressure and looked the most electable: Biden.
“I have no doubt the left will… say they are the ascendant wing and there will be presidential candidates in 2028 who feel the need to lurch leftward,” said Lis Smith, who advised Pete Buttigieg in 2020. But, she continued, Democratic hopefuls should “learn the lessons” of 2020: “What performs best in deep-blue districts and social media isn’t always what wins elections, and isn’t even always what performs best with the base.”
In reliably blue places, Democratic primary voters can support the most liberal candidates without worrying if they will win the general election. But in the races that will decide congressional control — let alone the next presidential nomination — even many liberal Democratic voters are likely to weigh their support for a progressive agenda against their overriding priority on choosing candidates who can beat Trump and his MAGA allies. For Democrats, in the races that count most, electability remains likely to trump ideology.
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