Leftward, ho! How socialists would shape a new Democratic majority

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) almost looks like a centrist now. That would have been a strange thing to say eight years ago, when she knocked off Rep. Joe Crowley, then the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, and became the face of a new left flank that made party leaders nervous. She and the rest of the “Squad” were supposed to be the ceiling, the outer edge of what the activist base would tolerate, and Democratic leadership spent the next several years assuring anyone who would listen that the fever would break on its own, but it didn’t. If anything, the crop of candidates the party is nominating in 2026 makes Ocasio-Cortez, who still holds the same views that once alarmed her colleagues, look like someone who long ago made her peace with the establishment.

Take Darializa Avila Chevalier, for example, who defeated five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) in the June Democratic primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District. In a series of now-deleted social media posts from 2020, she called Joe Biden a “rapist” and a “war criminal,” described the United States as a “f***ing disgrace,” and reposted a message declaring that “Israel doesn’t exist.” She has voiced support for abolishing the police, borders, and prisons and for seizing property from landlords. Pressed four separate times during an interview about whether someone convicted of murder should go to prison, she declined to say yes, offering instead that the circumstances allowing a murder to happen were themselves a reflection of unjust systems. Bill Maher called her “patient zero” of the “woke mind virus,” which is the kind of line that writes itself when a candidate takes a knee, figuratively at least, at the mention of the congressional oath of office. She is now the Democratic nominee for a safe seat, and barring something entirely out of the ordinary, she will be sworn into Congress next year.

Chevalier was not a fluke, and she was not alone. She was one of three candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani who won primaries in the city that same week. Two of them, including Chevalier, are card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America. A week later in Colorado, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old first-time candidate, ousted 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) in a Denver district that Kamala Harris carried by 56 points in 2024. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her Senate campaign, which leaves the Aug. 4 primary a two-way race between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), the choice of the party establishment, and Abdul El Sayed, a former Wayne County health director endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has led in several recent polls. In Wisconsin, state Rep. Francesca Hong is climbing in the race to replace retiring Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI). “It’s a great day to be a democratic socialist,” Hong posted after the New York results came in. “Wisconsin is next!”

For years, the story Democratic officials told themselves was that socialism was a boutique concern, confined to a handful of safe, deep-blue districts represented by personalities good for a cable-news segment but with little influence over where the party was actually headed. The grown-ups, the thinking went, still ran the operation. The 2026 primaries have made it difficult to keep telling that story with a straight face. The socialists did not simply hold their existing seats. They added to them by knocking off incumbents, including a sitting chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in districts within the House minority leader’s own city.

At left, Democratic Socialists Darializa Avila Chevalier (in blue) and New York state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez following their victories in Democratic congressional primaries in New York, June 30, 2026; at right, Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros at an primary-night victory party in Denver, June 30, 2026. (from left: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty; Rebecca Slezak/AP)

" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?w=696" height="658" width="1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?w=696" alt="At left, Democratic Socialists Darializa Avila Chevalier (in blue) and New York state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez following their victories in Democratic congressional primaries in New York, June 30, 2026; at right, Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros at an primary-night victory party in Denver, June 30, 2026. (from left: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty; Rebecca Slezak/AP)" class="wp-image-4644258" style="aspect-ratio:1.5571311291887455;width:336px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg 1400w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=300,193 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=768,494 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=1024,658 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=150,96 150w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=696,447 696w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward2.071526.jpg?resize=1068,687 1068w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">At left, Democratic Socialists Darializa Avila Chevalier (in blue) and New York state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez following their victories in Democratic congressional primaries in New York, June 30, 2026; at right, Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros at an primary-night victory party in Denver, June 30, 2026. (from left: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty; Rebecca Slezak/AP)

The candidates are not coy about whom they are running against. El Sayed has spent much of the Michigan race training his fire less on his eventual Republican opponent than on his own party’s leadership, and after McMorrow dropped out, he described the contest as a test of whether Democratic voters would “allow AIPAC or big corporations, Chuck Schumer, to show up and rig our democracy.” Kiros told Politico that any incumbent taking corporate political action committee money ought to be voted out, and she specifically included House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), saying she would not support him for speaker. This is the attitude of a faction that aims to run roughshod over party leadership.

And the grievances are not confined to Democratic leadership. It reaches the country itself. Chevalier’s long list of complaints about America, the ones she now says she “regrets” but pointedly declines to discuss, is not an embarrassment that the movement is quietly working to smooth over. It is almost a qualification. When someone turns up at a rally on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and later defends her attendance as a matter of concern for human dignity, she is not trying to win over undecided voters. She is talking to a base that treats that kind of gesture as proof of authenticity. These are not simply far-left Democrats. A good number of them hold an open contempt for the institutions of the U.S. and for the party whose nomination they are seeking.

Confronted with all of it, Democratic leadership has mostly chosen to look the other way. Asked about the New York results, Jeffries brushed them aside, telling reporters that “a handful of primaries that go in one direction or the other in a given state or two aren’t going to reshape who we are as House Democrats.” He characterized the strongest socialist district as “the most gentrified in the nation, by far,” which is a tidy way of implying that the whole movement is the hobby of wealthy whites rather than anything the party needs to take seriously. He congratulated Kiros on her win even after she announced she would not back him for speaker. And when the crowd at a socialist victory party chanted “you’re next” at the sight of his face on a television screen, he responded by reminding Democrats that the real adversary, after the primaries are settled, remains Donald Trump.

At left, Wisconsin Assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor, campaigning in Madison, Nov. 6, 2025; at right, Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan, speaks in Detroit, May 3, 2026. (From left: Scott Bauer/AP; Sarah Rice/Getty)

" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?w=696" height="658" width="1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?w=696" alt="At left, Wisconsin Assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor, campaigning in Madison, Nov. 6, 2025; at right, Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan, speaks in Detroit, May 3, 2026. (From left: Scott Bauer/AP; Sarah Rice/Getty)" class="wp-image-4644261" style="aspect-ratio:1.5570915123030136;width:366px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg 1400w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=300,193 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=768,494 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=1024,658 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=150,96 150w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=696,447 696w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward3.071526.jpg?resize=1068,687 1068w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">At left, Wisconsin Assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor, campaigning in Madison, Nov. 6, 2025; at right, Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan, speaks in Detroit, May 3, 2026. (From left: Scott Bauer/AP; Sarah Rice/Getty)

There is a rationale behind all of this, and it is not a foolish one. Jeffries wants to be speaker, which means holding his caucus together through November and not opening a second front against the most motivated voters his party has. Picking a fight with Mamdani, whose turnout operation just dispatched two incumbents, would be an odd way to go about assembling a majority, so Jeffries downplays, redirects, and keeps pointing at Trump. There is, however, a difference between managing a faction and pretending it is not there, and the leadership has landed on the second option. Insisting that a movement expanding into swing states amounts to a couple of gentrified districts comes off as gaslighting, as he tells everyone not to believe what they can see for themselves.

Republicans have seen this film before and can recite the ending. The Tea Party never needed a majority of the House Republican Conference to make John Boehner’s tenure as speaker miserable, and the Freedom Caucus that grew out of it never needed a majority to run Kevin McCarthy out of the speakership. A committed minority, backed by a primary electorate that treats compromise as a firing offense, can bring a narrow majority to a halt without ever holding one. It only needs to be big enough to deny leadership the votes it requires on any given day and disciplined enough to follow through. The socialist bloc heading for Congress in 2027 answers that description well enough.

Plenty of Democrats grasp the problem even as their leaders decline to name it. One centrist House member, anonymously, naturally, told Axios that the incoming socialists would be a “migraine” for leadership and added that “calling it a headache is an understatement.” James Carville has urged congressional Democrats to keep any socialist who reaches Washington at arm’s length. Maher warned that the party would hand away the midterm elections by embracing what he called the “crazy” wing. These are party insiders and outside observers, not Republican operatives running a smear, and they see where this is headed.

(Washington Examiner illustration)

" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?w=696" height="658" width="1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?w=696" alt="democratic socialism " class="wp-image-4644262" style="aspect-ratio:1.5570844550802672;width:346px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg 1400w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=300,193 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=768,494 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=1024,658 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=150,96 150w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=696,447 696w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Feat.Leftward.071526.jpg?resize=1068,687 1068w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">(Washington Examiner illustration)

Should Democrats take back the House this fall, and the current climate suggests they have a real chance, they will inherit a governing problem that leadership has spent two years insisting did not exist. They were able to mask the problem from 2021 to 2024 as the “centrist” Biden was president. Still, Biden was and has always been a “centrist” in the sense of where the party is. He didn’t govern like a Squad member, but his governing was miles to the left of where the Democratic Party was when Bill Clinton was president.

A narrow House majority under Jeffries would rest on the votes of members who campaigned against him by name, who openly disdain Israel, the police, border control, and, in some cases, the basic legitimacy of American institutions. They owe their seats to a base that regards any deal cut with the other side as a betrayal. The math might be there to win the majority, but there are big signs that Jeffries may not be able to hold a coalition together.

NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO A JOB AT CBS OR ANYWHERE ELSE

Leadership had its opening to take this seriously back when the Squad was still small enough to contain, and it passed. It treated a handful of loud freshmen as nuisances who would either learn how Washington works or fade out on their own. When Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush lost their primary races in 2024, leadership and talking heads said, “See? It was nothing.” And yet, two years later, it only got worse.

At first, it was just a small movement, spurred on by Sanders’s 2016 presidential run. However, the movement built a machine, and the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks gave some Democrats the permission structure to openly show their contempt for Israel, which became catnip for a (mostly white) progressive voting base. That machine is now bearing down on the very people who spent eight years waving off the nuisance and are now flailing, hoping it doesn’t get to them.

Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) is a writer living in Florida.