Democratic voters to leaders: We want fighters

There was lots of melodrama over Tuesday primaries in New York. But Democratic leaders shouldn’t let media figures--and the GOP--distort the meaning of those elections.

Since Tuesday night much of the media has focused on the influence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who backed Democratic socialist candidates who won Democratic House primaries in New York, two of whom beat incumbent Democrats. That’s big stuff in politics—and endorsing candidates to oust incumbents is bold—and surely it’s a boon for Mamdani in his efforts to help shape the future of the Democratic Party.

But there’s been a lot read into what happened when this is actually a case in which the details matter less than the larger message. Democratic voters are demanding fighters on issues they feel strongly about. They’re electing Democrats who are seeing the urgency of the moment and who bring that to the fight.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who did what he could to defend the losing incumbents—Rep. Dan Goldman, who was defeated by Brad Lander, and Rep. Adrian Espaillat, who was defeated by Darializa Avila Chevalier—tried to dismiss the win by Democratic socialists, saying that a few members aren’t going to sway the direction of the party.

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Some centrist Democrats clutched their pearls, worried about the midterms. “Instead of us making sure we put all of our resources to fight Republicans and to fight Donald Trump, we’re using it to fight each other,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York to CNN. “It just doesn’t make common sense to me.”

And veteran Democratic strategist James Carville had a full-blown bonkers meltdown, saying on a podcast that “these people are not Democrats” and that Democrats need to “negotiate the terms of a schism” with democratic socialists in the party.

The bedwetters are actually letting the GOP turn what is another win for Democratic voters into a negative—promoting an idiotic idea that Democratic voters are split. Some Democratic leaders think the party should move to the center. But the voters know what they want. And they are all that matters.

Much of what happened has also been blown out of proportion. As big a night as it was for Mamdani, he was very shrewd and didn’t endorse in every race. He focused on the races in which he knew he could help make a difference and didn’t squander his endorsements. Democratic socialists lost in several races, and conventional Democrats—including those who support arming Israel—won. So there was a lot of churning and frothing by the media. But hey, good for Mamdani. He’s a savvy politician and is using his influence.

Secondly, to emphasize the details—or some of the past social media posts of some of the candidates Mamdani backed, for example—is to buy into the GOP’s boogyman strategy, which they’ll no doubt employ for the midterms. They are going to focus on Avila Chevalier’s support for prison abolitionism and her since-deleted tweets cursing at Kamala Harris. And they’ll, of course, attempt to demonize Democratic socialists on the ballot—both Seattle and Washington, DC, have now elected Democratic socialist mayors as well—just as they did in trying to take down Mamdani.

That strategy didn’t work for them with Mamdani, and Democrats by now should know why: People don’t care about the label of Democratic socialism. They care about candidates who are standing up to injustice—in America and in foreign wars—as well as speaking out about corruption while focusing on affordability.

That’s the message Democratic leaders should take from Tuesday. We’ve actually seen Democrats get more backbone in recent months after first being very tepid in their response to Trump—as the base of the party expressed its anger and frustration. Finally, leaders began to get the message and began being more forceful. They refused to give their votes to reopen ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. They forced Republicans to own that, as well as Trump’s ballroom and his slush fund—and they saw Republicans actually run for cover on those issues.

So, regarding Tuesday’s election, they should not take the media’s or the GOP’s bait in demonizing democratic socialists and should instead lean into the issues these candidates have focused on. They should make sure all Democrats, in every district, are the fighters the base is demanding they be, no matter what label those Democrats use for themselves.

Rather than let others use these elections to divide Democrats—a “schism” as Carville melodramatically put it—they should see it as something uniting Democrats. Because, as with so many elections we’ve seen since Trump came back to office, Tuesday showed Democratic voters, no matter what Democratic leaders think, are unified behind fighters.