The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave, as a tectonic shift in American politics has unfolded over the last month, beginning with Chris Rabb's victory in Pennsylvania and culminating in New York. The party's leadership is deeply out of touch with its base, and a leftist politics of collective struggle is cresting across the country.
Leftist Sweep Across Major Cities
Rabb's win was a warning shot—a socialist winning in a seat that had been an establishment stronghold. Two weeks later, the left won across Los Angeles. Two weeks after that, the left swept the elections in the District of Columbia. And on Tuesday night, the left dominated New York City in an overwhelming display of force: progressive Brad Lander took out incumbent centrist Dan Goldman, socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier shocked incumbent Adriano Espaillat, and socialist Claire Valdez easily dispatched Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso.
The Democratic Socialists of America's (DSA) down-ballot slate also swept across the board, taking out four incumbent state legislators. The Democratic electorate has moved radically to the left over the past four years, and this will shape politics this year and for decades to come.
Drivers of the Shift: Trump, Gaza, and Generational Change
There are a number of factors at play, many of them long-term, but the magnitude of this shift shows rapid movement among Democratic primary voters. This is spurred first by the second Trump administration. The first Trump administration could be sold to liberal voters as an aberration, but a decade into Trump's wild ride, it's clear that the Republican party is permanently radicalized. The result is a Democratic base far more receptive to challenging Trump aggressively and to policies that represent a rupture from the pre-Trump consensus.
This first became clear with the crowds at Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Fight Oligarchy Tour: not just youthful radicals, but older resistance types who had voted for moderate candidates in the first Trump administration. Senate Democrats caving multiple times to Trump led to huge drops in approval for congressional Democrats and Chuck Schumer specifically.
The second major factor is the impact of Israel's assault on Gaza. Democratic voters have turned sharply against Israel—within the Democratic coalition, this is now an 80/20 issue, while the party establishment trails, having completely missed the moral outrage. Votes for Israel and money from Aipac are massive anvils around any establishment candidate. This issue propelled, more than any other, the wins of Analilia Mejia, Lander, and Avila Chevalier, by defining them as referendums on Aipac.
Democrats are also moving left due to generational shift. Sanders won large margins with Democrats under 35 in 2016. The oldest of those voters are now 45, but still voting the same. Democratic socialism has become hegemonic among an entire generation of voters, now ageing into a majority. The young radicals of 2016 are now members of their parent teacher associations, but still just as radical.
Urban Politics and Grassroots Organizing
Underlying this generational change is a change in urban politics itself. The shift left has concentrated in urban areas: New York, Washington DC, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and more. Over a decade of local races, the left has built an ideologically tethered base and organizational infrastructure through DSA chapters that have been winning elections and building a bench to compete outside core young, dense, renter-heavy, transit-oriented areas.
These local political machines first consolidated in lower-hanging fruit districts made up of voters radicalized by the Sanders campaigns. This patient work has scaled up: socialists can now win citywide in New York with Zohran Mamdani, or DC with Janeese Lewis George, or sweep to an easy first place citywide in Los Angeles with Marissa Roy. This long-term organizing has moved the left beyond its young, relatively whiter base to win across large majority Black and Latino constituencies that the Sanders campaigns could not win.
Return to Mass Politics
Lastly, the left surge is based on a return to mass politics, specifically, DSA as a democratically run, member-funded organization. For most of the 20th century, politics was based around such organizations—unions, local parties, civic organizations—that offered community and collective decision-making. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw the atrophying of these organizations, replaced by atomized politics decided by cabals of elected officials with no deep roots among the masses.
The most radical thing DSA and the left have done is rebuild this—in a time where politics exists online and on TV, expressed through money rather than organized people. Nowhere is this clearer than in New York's seventh congressional district, where Valdez of the DSA defeated Reynoso of the Working Families Party (WFP). WFP represents the old style of progressive politics: funded by grants from big donors, byzantine internally. Valdez and DSA wiped him off the map. DSA is a mass organization; in NY-7, it has members on every block, each an equal participant.
A left rooted in the masses is once again muscular, not tied to the whims of donors and non-profits, but reflecting the collective will of day-to-day workers. This is what's rebuilding the left and beating centrist Democrats up and down the ballot: a return to an old politics of collective struggle, winning hegemony among large swathes of the Democratic coalition.
After the last month, Democratic leadership should be seriously taking stock of their position. The energy is on their left. The people are on their left. Democrats want fighters, and they want a politics rooted in the collective struggles of the masses, not decided in smoke-filled rooms. A leftist wave is cresting across the country.
