The American left is making strides. But can they win in November? |
The ideological struggle within the Democratic party continued on Tuesday night with primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington. The results showed an increasingly intense conflict within the party, with high Democratic primary turnout and bruising ideological battles up and down the ballot.
The Democratic electorate is shifting, becoming more progressive and more willing to challenge party leadership, but not as quickly or uniformly as many assumed.
Progressives and socialists scored another round of victories, most notably Abdul El-Sayed for Senate, but also downballot with Donavan McKinney and Will Lawrence in congressional races, and in state legislative seats such as Chris Gilmer-Hill in Detroit. But the scale and breadth of those victories fell short of the expectations created by polling and media coverage.
A few key lessons have emerged. First, building a mass left in the United States is a slow and bruising process, and there is no single tipping point at which the party and its voters suddenly become committed leftwing partisans.
Second, the left is nonetheless growing rapidly, able to win beyond young, deep-blue urban areas where concerns about general-election viability against Republicans are relatively limited, and across an entire statewide Democratic primary electorate in a swing state.
This is a major step in the left’s development as an electoral force. Third, the left’s next and most important challenge is winning swing states and competitive seats against Republicans.
The left has enjoyed a string of notable electoral victories........