Why Democratic Socialists are suddenly winning everywhere
It’s not because of ideology
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Democratic Socialists are on a roll. In New York’s June 23 primaries, candidates allied with the Democratic Socialists of America won in 9 of 10 races the organization fielded a candidate in, including three congressional districts in New York City where they also knocked off two incumbent Democratic House Reps. Then last week the socialist-red wave hit Denver, where 29-year-old Melat Kiros beat Rep. Diana DeGette, who has represented Colorado’s 1st District since 1997. The DSA is now on track to hold at least five seats in Congress next year, up from two a year ago.
But it wasn’t just the DSA running up the score — and it’s not really socialism that’s on the menu. For example, Sen. John Hickenlooper won renomination in Colorado by just 53-47 over a more mainstream progressive Democratic challenger Julie Gonzales, despite massively outspending her. By election analyst Stephen Wolf’s count, only two Democratic senators since 1972 have lost a primary to a challenger from their left. Hickenlooper came dangerously close to becoming the third.
In response to these victories Trump told the annual Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last month that the winners are “not social democrats” but “hardcore, godless communists,” and called them “the most serious threat to our country since its existence.” Axios reported on June 30 that the GOP sees a rebooted Red Scare as its best midterm message. Trump railed against communism in a July 3rd front of Mount Rushmore and urged the Senate to pass his restrictive voting laws bill so Republicans could hold office “for 100 years.”
This all has drawn a lot of attention to the current fracture within the Democratic Party. Is it really about socialism and ideological conflict, as Trump and centrist Democrats both want you to think, or something else? I went back through 18 months of our Strength In Numbers/Verasight polling and spent dozens of hours analyzing politicians’ websites, social media pages, campaign addresses and congressional floor speeches to find an answer.
The hard data on this subject is pretty clear — but before I give you any answers answer, I wanted to flex the type of insights you can generate when you run your own polls to understand politics for the public.
One thing nobody has shown yet is that the revolt against establishment Democrats is not confined to left-wing voters. In this week’s Deep Dive I show these DSA candidates are polling well not just among people who call themselves progressives, but center-left voters and moderates, too. And I analyze the actual speech they’ve campaigned on to understand why.
Democrats want their leaders to fight, not move left or right
My answer to this article’s central question is that the current factor driving many Democrats to support left-wing candidates isn’t ideology, but a revolt against the party’s leadership and political establishment more broadly. The central conflict is less over seizing the means of production and more akin to what I’ve called the anti-system axis in American politics. Let me explain what I mean by this, and why I think the data conclusively shows Democratic primary voters aren’t being drawn primarily to the leftism of these DSA candidate, but rather their anti-party orientation.
First, consider that polling data shows relatively few Democrats think their party has moved too far to the left: just 14% said so in our July 2025 poll, and a May 2026 New York Times/Siena poll put that share at 20%, with 55% saying the party is about where it should be.
What Democrats do say is that their party is feeble. In an early 2026 poll, I asked self-described Democrats to grade their own party on a list of traits, like whether it governs competently, cares about “people like you,” or is ideologically extreme. On a 1–10 scale, Democrats scored their party 7.0 on “competent,” 7.2 on “principled,” and 7.5 on “empathetic,” but just 5.4 on “tough.” And in the same poll, 57% of Democrats called their own party out of touch. Just 58% said it “has strong leadership” and a plurality said it should do more to fight Donald Trump.
When we asked Democrats in April, in their own words, what bothered them most about their party, the top answer was “too weak / not fighting enough,” at 30%, well ahead of everything else.
Data: Even moderate Democrats prefer left-wing figures to party leadership
One of the assumptions underpinning the current discourse about the Democratic Tea Party is that anti-system, DSA candidates are only winning support among left-wing Democrats.
Our polling shows this isn’t true.
