The 2026 midterm election showed that leftists like Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed — and even candidates who have been affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America — can win in competitive areas of the country, under the right circumstances.
But it also showed the danger of nominating candidates like them.
Many of them won, but they also often ran worse than other Democrats — and even further behind some of the party’s most moderate candidates.
The results clearly illustrate that nominating more moderate candidates remains the most fruitful path to winning swing seats and states. And they suggest candidates like El-Sayed could cost Democrats in less-wavey elections.
Does the author realize that everyone ran on Mamdani’s affordability platform? Otherwise, they would have had nothing to offer other than being not Trump.
More Perfect Union just backed me up.
And wisely so. To their credit, moderates realized it was the right campaign strategy, so they embraced it. However, it’s hard to say how many of them actually give a shit about affordability. I think it’s likely at least some Democrats only put on the mask of an economic populist, and as soon as it’s politically convenient, the mask will come off. Which is what the moderate Dem voters are counting on. They have nothing but disdain for economic populism, but they were willing to pretend like they loved it to win back power.