The Democratic Socialists of America have already knocked off four House incumbents this primary season. Now they want at least nine more, and the targets stretch from Missouri to Florida to New Hampshire, a state Republicans have long fought to flip.
The DSA's summer offensive amounts to a hostile takeover bid inside the Democratic Party, one race at a time. And if the early returns are any guide, the party establishment has no reliable way to stop it.
Four DSA-backed candidates have won breakthrough House primaries so far. Melat Kiros defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette in a Denver-based district. Chris Rabb won in Pennsylvania. Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez toppled Democratic incumbents in New York. Five high-profile House Democratic incumbents have now lost their primaries overall, counting progressive challengers not formally backed by the DSA.
The next wave of primaries arrives fast. Missouri and Michigan vote August 4. Wisconsin follows on August 11. Florida's primary lands August 18. In each state, the DSA has a candidate, and in several cases, the target is a sitting Democrat who thought the seat was safe.
Former Rep. Cori Bush, who lost her seat to Rep. Wesley Bell in 2024, is trying to win it back. Sen. Bernie Sanders has endorsed her. Sparse polling, linked to a post on X by DropSiteNews, shows Bush and Bell running neck and neck, the New York Post reported.
Bush faced fierce blowback roughly two years ago over her anti-Israel stance. But the politics of that issue have seemingly shifted within the Democratic Party, enough, at least, for Bush to mount a serious rematch with high-profile progressive backing.
The DSA is also backing Hartzell Gray in a separate Missouri race, hoping he can win the Democratic nomination to challenge Rep. Mark Alford. The Cook Political Report rates Republicans as widely favored in that district, making it more of a statement candidacy than a realistic pickup.
Michigan's August 4 primary features three DSA-linked races. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a founding member of the progressive "Squad," has DSA backing for her own primary. But the higher-profile fight is in Michigan's 13th Congressional District, where state Rep. Donavan McKinney is challenging Rep. Shri Thanedar.
McKinney has branded Thanedar as "Detroit's own Elon Musk", a jab designed to paint the incumbent as out of touch with a very deep blue district. Thanedar previously pushed to impeach President Trump but pulled the resolution after backlash from his own party, an episode that earned him few friends on either side.
The DSA is also running Kyle Blomquist in a Michigan race against Rep. Jack Bergman, whose vast district covering the Upper Peninsula and northern Michigan is rated "solid Republican" by the Cook Political Report. That race looks like a placeholder more than a genuine contest. But the 13th District fight is real, and McKinney has the kind of local credentials, state legislator, DSA endorsement, a punchy message, that have produced upsets elsewhere this cycle.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, holds the lead in a three-way race in another Michigan contest. The pattern that produced Melat Kiros's upset of a 30-year incumbent in Colorado, a progressive challenger with national backing running in a deep-blue district against a complacent establishment figure, is repeating across the map.
Wisconsin's August 11 primaries put two DSA-backed candidates on the ballot. Katrina DeVille is seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Rep. Tony Wied. Emily Berge is running for the chance to challenge Rep. Derrick Van Orden, whose seat is described as competitive in November, making it one of the few DSA-targeted races where the general election actually matters.
That distinction is worth pausing on. Most of the DSA's targets sit in districts so blue that whoever wins the Democratic primary wins the seat. The general election is an afterthought. Wisconsin's Van Orden race is different. If Berge wins the primary and then faces voters in a swing district, Democrats will have to decide whether a DSA-endorsed nominee helps or hurts their chances of holding a competitive House seat.
In Florida, Oliver Larkin is aiming to unseat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on August 18. Wasserman Schultz, the former Democratic National Committee chair, represents exactly the kind of establishment figure the DSA loves to target. Whether Larkin can pull it off is another question, but Wasserman Schultz is now on the defensive in a way she likely never expected.
Perhaps the most consequential race on the DSA's board is in New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District, where Rep. Chris Pappas is vacating his seat. Heath Howard, a DSA-backed candidate, could win the Democratic nomination, in a district Republicans have long sought to capture.
A socialist nominee in a competitive New Hampshire district would hand Republicans a ready-made campaign message. Speaker Johnson has already argued that the DSA's primary victories prove socialists now run the Democratic Party. A Howard nomination in the Granite State would give that argument a concrete test case in a general election.
The DSA's winning streak is not happening in a vacuum. Beyond the four DSA-backed victories, Democrats have watched establishment-aligned candidates lose across the board. Graham Platner defeated Maine Gov. Janet Mills in a Senate primary last month. Rep. Seth Moulton is challenging incumbent Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts. The progressive wing is not just nipping at the party's edges, it is contesting leadership races and statewide nominations.
One unnamed House Democratic staffer summed up the mood to the New York Post with a candor rarely seen on the record:
"We are so cooked. [Hakeem] Jeffries will have to start calling members 'comrade' during caucus meetings come January."
That quote captures something the party's public spokespeople will not say: the Democratic establishment does not have a strategy for stopping this. The DSA's playbook, target deep-blue districts where primaries are the real election, run younger candidates against incumbents seen as too old or too passive, and ride national progressive energy, has worked repeatedly. And the establishment's countermoves have failed repeatedly.
James Carville's demand for a party "schism" over the rise of anti-Israel socialists within Democratic ranks reflects the scale of the internal crisis. But demanding a schism and executing one are different things, especially when the insurgents keep winning.
The DSA's strategy carries a built-in tension. In safe blue districts, their candidates will almost certainly win general elections, adding self-described socialists to the Democratic caucus. In competitive districts, Wisconsin's Van Orden seat, New Hampshire's 1st, a DSA nominee could hand the seat to Republicans.
Either outcome serves the conservative case. More socialists in the Democratic caucus confirms what the party's critics have long argued about its ideological direction. Lost competitive seats because of far-left nominees confirm that the Democratic primary electorate is out of step with the broader electorate.
The DSA does not appear worried about that trade-off. They are playing a long game: shift the party's center of gravity leftward, one primary at a time, and let the establishment figure out how to live with the results.
For voters who value accountable government, honest markets, and leaders who answer to their constituents rather than to ideological organizations, the DSA's advance is worth watching closely. The Democratic Party's inability to defend its own incumbents against socialist challengers is not just an internal party matter. It shapes the choices available to every voter in those districts, and, eventually, the legislation that reaches the House floor.
When a party's own staffers are joking about "comrade", and the joke keeps getting less funny, the rest of the country ought to pay attention.
