American progressives show strength in the primaries and predict new victories ahead democrats

In the struggle for control of the Democratic Party, progressives are increasingly confident of victory. So they explain why they continue to compete record amounts Super Pac money flowed to nominate candidates for safe democratic seats.

“There are a number of people who are uncomfortable with the new policy,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Progressive Party of Working Families. “They are trying to turn the clock back. But the gin came out of the bottle. “

So far, progressives have mixed results in this election cycle. But a stronger-than-expected performance at last week’s primaries intensified the movement and, they hope, laid the groundwork for even greater success this summer.

In Pennsylvania, the representative of the state of Summer Lee overcame a flood of external costs to win her primaries in Congress. Lee was declared the winner after three days of counting. She wrote in a tweet: “$ 4.5 Million” from an emoji with a fire and a trash can.

Progressive Oregon activists welcomed the victory of Andrea Salinas, who also faced big money in her race for a newly created seat in Congress. Meanwhile sevenfold Oregon Congressman Kurt Schreider, whose conservative policies have angered the left, appears to be on the verge of losing his seat to progressive contender Jamie McLeod-Skinner, although results have been delayed due to problems with ballot printing.

And in one of the most competitive Senate races in the cycle, John Fetterman, the iconoclast, liberal lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, defeated Congressman Connor Lamb, the rising star of the center-left.

The next test of progressive political power will take place on Tuesday, in Fr. Texas a second round of elections between Congressman Henry Kueller, a Conservative Democrat backed by the party leadership, and Jessica Cisneras, a progressive immigration attorney backed by Alexandria Acacia-Cortes and Bernie Sanders. And then there are competitive intra-party primaries in Illinois, New York and Michigan.

“We’re not making any winning circles,” Mitchell said. “If anything, those losses and victories have doubled our commitment and focus.”

Moderates see the cycle quite differently.

They point to three House races last week in North Carolina and Kentucky, where the more moderate candidate easily won. The victories came just two weeks after Democratic Congressman Schontel Brown won a tough rematch in Ohio against Nina Turner, a progressive activist who worked for Sanders’ presidential campaign.

“People who are far outside the mainstream of the Democratic Conference find it difficult for tolerant people to run in swing constituencies because their ideas and rhetoric are used against people like Abigail Spanberger,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left organization. Third Way think tank, citing a congresswoman from Virginia who nominated progressives at the expense of party seats in 2020.

Bennett said it’s important to distinguish between progressives. He argued that candidates who are “liberal but not radical” such as McLeod Skinner in Oregon do not pose a risk to the swing state. democrats.

Instead, “we’re worried about the squad,” Bennett said, referring to a group of progressive congresswoman members of Acacia-Cortes, “because people in this wing of the party don’t see it as part of their duty as Democrats to help ensure we have the majority. “

This argument angers progressives. Following Sanders, they allied for Biden to oust Donald Trump in 2020, and then spent the last year and a half working with congressional and White House leaders to adopt the president’s economic agenda. And yet the progressives are the ones who are hit by external costs.

A number of controversial democratic contests have been formed by Super Pacs, such as the one formed by the Public Relations Committee of America with Israel known as Aipac, another supported by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and another supported by crypto-billionaires.

Much – though not all – of foreign money supports moderate candidates, including Cuellar, a nine-year-old president who is fighting for his political life.

“It’s the battle of David and Goliath,” Mitchell said.

In a show of resentment between the party’s two ideological factions, Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ former head of the company, warned that progressives could nominate third-party candidates in constituencies to reduce the chances of centrist Democrats.

The proposal outraged Bennett, who called it “the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever seen a Democrat say … maybe ever, and especially in the face of the Republican Party, which has lost its ever-loving mind.”

However, not every primaries are exactly ideological.

Schreider of Oregon angered Democrats in the state after voting against a provision that allows Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. Leaders of local democratic parties voted in favor approve his challenger, McLeod-Skinner, dramatically broke with tradition.

Experts believe that the second round in Texas will be the leader of democratic sentiment in the political landscape, which is increasingly conducive to Republicans. Democrats have a razor-sharp majority in Congress, and the ruling party has historically lost in the first midterm presidential election.

Democrats are also struggling to stay ahead of Biden’s low rating, hampered by inflation and widespread frustration with Washington.

As Cisneras forced Cuellar to advance to the second round earlier this year, the race was changed to a draft Supreme Court ruling stating that judges are ready to repeal the constitutional right to abortion.

Cuellar is one of the few Democrats left in Congress who opposes abortion. Cisneras, by contrast, has thrown herself as a defender of reproductive rights in a state that has actually banned abortion.

They also faced immigration. While Cuellar has strongly criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies, often appearing on Fox News to express his complaints about the president’s handling of the border, Cisneras advocates a more progressive stance in the sector.

No matter what happens on Tuesday in Texas, progressives believe they have made progress in raising candidates, they are confident to mobilize the party base in November.

Kentucky Democrats have nominated Charles Booker, an indecently progressive former state MP who easily won the Senate primaries two years after surprising the party establishment by nearly defeating an elected candidate.

Now Booker is facing serious chances, challenging incumbent Republican Senator Rand Paul. But Booker believes his primary victory is a sign that voters are eager for new leadership.

Had he defeated Paul, he would have become the state’s first black senator.

“The truth is that Kentucky residents want real progress,” Booker said. “It simply came to our notice then.

“The policies I am raising, the issues I am fighting for, they are not radical and do not come from some national consultant. It follows from my experience in wrestling that most Kentucky people know well. ”