US primaries | US Democrats are moving to the left

From the street to parliament. Within the US Democrats, left-wing forces and ideas are gaining more and more support. Photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Press Wire/Gina M. Randazzo The US Democrats' primaries to appoint candidates for the congressional election in November were determined by the anger of the party base over the renewed defeat of the party elites dominated by old politicians against Donald Trump as well as the desire for "fighters" and "fresh blood". In the constant battle for dominance within the Democrats, the left wing was able to gain ground.

Politically, the year 2026 began with the inauguration of the new left-wing New York mayor Zohran Mamdani. In addition to numerous initiatives that show a functioning state in the service of a left-wing agenda, accompanied by constant positive communication with the 34-year-old's charming smile, Mamdani also startled the party elites with what observers described as a "power play": in three congressional constituencies in the city, he supported left-wing challengers to established Democrats. All three subsequently won their primaries in June to great media attention.

Three other left-wing Democrats subsequently won in Colorado, California and Illinois. This means that the 2026 primary election season, which ended on Tuesday with the last votes in Delaware, was as turbulent as it was last in 1970, writes the political news portal “The Hill”.

At the same time, this also shows that little change is taking place in the very gerontocratically structured US Congress - a seat in Congress is often a position almost for life. In 2018, for example, only two MPs lost their mandate. At that time, the party leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her constituency in New York City and founded the left-wing “Squad” with three other female representatives, which had a strong media presence. This group will be even larger, with around a dozen representatives, in the 120th Congress starting in January. She will loudly represent left-wing positions such as the introduction of universal public health care (Medicare For All), minimum wage increases and taxes on the rich, abolition of the ICE deportation agency and an arms embargo against Israel.

Recent polls show that there is an appetite for “more socialism” across the country, at least among US Democrats. 32 percent of their voters see themselves as democratic socialists.

Some loud progressives also won so-called “open seats” where no incumbent was running: for example in Democratic strongholds such as Philadelphia or the state of New Jersey. Although around two dozen new progressives may seem like a small number in the face of a faction in the House of Representatives that currently has 214 representatives, their election victories also “discipline” other representatives, such as the 100 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who, despite the name, are only very timidly progressive.

After the left-wing primary victories in New York and Denver in June, alarmed establishment Democrats and liberal television commentators on CNN and MSNBC claimed that politicians from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the party left as a whole could only be successful in urban centers. However, subsequent election victories by left-wing or progressive candidates in the Senate primaries in regional states and the Midwest in July and August counteract this picture: progressive Democrats prevailed in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Maine. In the gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, DSA politician Francesca Hong, who mobilized primarily against AI data centers, narrowly lost the primary election by just 0.5 percentage points after prominent intervention by the party's own governor at the last minute in favor of a moderate candidate.

Even if the Democratic base, which according to surveys is primarily interested in winning, is putting up more moderate candidates in the country's two dozen or so "swing districts," the party's left can try to prove in November in six highly contested constituencies that left-wing social populism can successfully take seats from the Republicans even in quite conservative, rural areas.

In fact, the work of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose size has grown from around 50,000 to 129,000 members in the wake of Mamdani's election victory and other primary election successes this summer, has become increasingly professional. The DSA activists are increasingly acting as the spearhead of the politically more left-wing Millennial generation under the age of 40 and the emerging, also very progressive Gen-Z, which - politicized by Occupy Wall Street, the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and the increasing inequality in the country - makes up an ever larger part of the country's electorate.

Current poll data also shows that there is an appetite for “more socialism” across the country, at least among US Democrats. According to a Pew poll, 32 percent of Democratic voters identify as democratic socialists. But beyond that, there is a lot of sympathy for the demands and policies of the democratic socialists: in a CBS poll, 51 percent of Democratic voters said support from the DSA would increase their willingness to vote for a candidate, while only eight percent said the opposite.

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