The party may reclaim the US House and even Senate, but primary candidates are far from united on how to move forward
Across the country, in front yards and on main streets, at dairy breakfasts and inside breweries, voters are delivering a similar message to Democratic primary candidates: they’re tired of both parties, and sick of being ignored.
The Democratic party brand is bruised after its disastrous 2024 presidential loss. A botched review of the defeat by the Democratic National Committee, and a drawn-out process over releasing the so-called autopsy, created another round of handwringing over the party’s direction.
On doorsteps, though, the voters don’t bring up the autopsy, or the party’s brand, according to candidates nationwide. They want a party that will stand up to Trump, fight for their healthcare and housing, make life more affordable, rein in immigration agents, build up their schools, get the US out of war and lower gas prices, protect their jobs from AI, confront the climate crisis and prevent datacenters from coming in.
My question for the Democratic leadership is: Why can’t they find any decent candidates? Seriously: the Senate race against Susan Collins ought to be a Dem gimmie, and the best they can do is Graham Platner? I don’t even care if the dude is fully reformed and now a shining beacon of progressivism, there’s literally millions of alternatives without questionable histories. Where are all these angry pro-social, anti-war, climate enthusiasts when it’s time to put in the work to run against some Republican shitbird?
Where are all the Zihran Mamdanis and Kat Abughazalehs? Why wouldn’t Dan Osborn run as a Democrat?
If you want the real answer to that question, look no further than the guest list for Dick Cheney’s funeral.
It’s the same reason the supreme court is stacked the way it is, Rowe wasn’t codified, and there always seems to be a Manchin, Sinema, or Fetterman there to throw a wrench into the gears.
I would be willing to forgive someone for attending Cheneys funeral if they showed up drunk as hell, 40 of Billy Dee in hand, and treating the death of that monster like the celebration it should’ve been.
This would’ve also been acceptable behavior for Kissingers funeral
It’s because they don’t want any candidates that want to make actual changes, they want to perpetuate the status quo. So radicals get filtered and slandered until no one is left who can fight back. The only time someone else gets through is when they can capture enough public attention that the Dems can’t smear them out of the running.
Or that’s what it looks like from the outside. I haven’t lived in the US in years, so maybe I’m way off nowadays.
Well, given that the DNC backed an Independent candidate over Zohran Mamdani through the actual election, I think the question the DNC is asking is not “how do we find another Mamdani” but “how did we let Mamdani win?”.
“b-but we need unity. stop berating the democrats-” No. Between that New York race and the years of stonewalling progressives; and the complete lack of any party leadership in the last year and a half.
What about the blatant funneling of “dark money” funds into Chorus??; an attempt by the Democrats to hijack the trusted online media landscape that they’d shunned through Biden’s term.
The Democrats are perfectly consent with all of this terrorism. As another comment noted, they exist to provide stability for corporations. As such, the Dems have spent the last year-and-a-half helping sheep the USA into fascism. They don’t care about our rights. They care that we keep to our routines, especially in situations where following that routine is unnatural and destructive to our lives.
Don’t get me wrong: There are good “Democrats” (AOC, Chris Murphy, Ilhan Omar…), and I will still vote for them; and Representative Thomas Massie was a man with more character than at least half of the Democratic Party’s politicians, despite membership in the Republican Party of Epstein and fascism. There is always nuance, and there are always outliers. What I do not want is for people to trust Democratic leadership. The only party I trust at this point is the Working Families Party; the coalition which rallied for Mamdani’s NYC mayoral victory against the strongest voices of the Democratic Party. Of course, his opponent being a mass-murdering sexual predator helped, too; which begs the question of why the DNC would support a mass-murdering sexual predator.
But when he won, all his Corporate Establishment DINO critics showed up at his Inauguration, and grinned like they’d been on board the entire time, basking in his glow.
“Oh, is this what it feels like to win? It’s nice, I like it. We should do this more often.”
This always gets me fuming. This party did everything to stop this guy, and then they want to share the cake when they were impeding in every step of baking it.
Not that I doubt it but what do you mean the DNC backed an indie candidate? I thought the DNC chair endorsed Mamdani following primaries?
I’m referring to the DNC broadly here. See, this article: https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2025/09/18/schumer-jeffries-mamdani-endorsement-congress/
@lennybird @KelvarCherry
Mamdani’s base is a bunch of privileged crybaby leftists. They’re still going around complaining about the party not forming a cult around him. Meanwhile here’s a list of Democrats who endorsed Mamdani.
ah yes. Harri’s shining leadership moment when she went public endorsing Mamdani was to say, “I endorse the democrat in the race”, A full 2 and a half months after he won the democratic primary. Classic Harris/DNC centrist leadership. No kind words, no reasons. WTF took so long? What happened to “vote blue no matter who”? Even Warren waited till after he won the primary. The only prominent Dems who endorsed Mamdani before he won the primary were AOC and Bernie. Everyone else either were silent or endorsed other dems. This might come as a shock to you HakeemG, but the DNC hates progressives.
@kreskin
Its a NY city mayor race that dominated the national news for months and highlighted a vicious self defeating split in the democratic party between centrists and progressives. The DNC could have chosen to stand with the Dem who won the primary and they decided to try hard not to. No funding, no endorsements, no lip service even. All bcause he was muslim. You a minority hater too Hakeem?
You’re comments show that you’re a centrist pretending to be progressive. Why are you so keen on Harris by the way? Are you sure she is a champion of your causes?
It means when he gets elected the party rallies around him. They didnt do that for months. They kept floating ideas to shank him by running an independent. They finally did when they had no other choice. Your comment again proves that you’re a DNC centrist. You are straight up the middle, rooting for the status quo, not being honest. a 5x5 centrist yelling into the void and losing election after election to suck special interests toes, same as all the other centrists. You’ll continue to lose every fight you engage in without the left that you hate so much, so pull up a chair and get comfortable with that fact. You’re no lefty.
@kreskin
A centrist that would have fired half the NYPD if I was mayor and they wouldn’t be beating up my best friend without consequences like Mamdani. I also wouldn’t have cut a billion dollars from education and housing or defunded the libraries like he did, but sure if I’m a centrist what does that make your hero?
When it comes to general elections, even the corporate Dems tend to be better than the Republicans. I mean, if the corpos are out there avoiding any solutions, the GOP is actively trying to harm people, and “nothing” is better than “more boots to the ass.” If the last three Presidential elections show anything, it is that the Democratic party will not be fixed by withholding general election votes in protest, and third parties are still irrelevant.
The time to fix the Democrats is in the primaries. The people to fix those primaries are people who would really rather vote for a radical 3rd party candidate. Many states have open primaries, so third party voters can just go vote in the Dem primary. Treat it like sabotage. The right-wing nutjobs took over the republican party. Left wing nutjobs can take over the democrats, if they show up. Mamdani doesn’t have to be a black swan.
The problem is, that’s how the country creeps rightward. If the Dems aren’t going to do anything because of “stability,” that leaves the door open for the Reps to yank it to the right next time they’re in power. And they do. Every time. Much moreso the last 2 times. There are little to no “moderate” Republicans left - most of them are Democrats, now, which is also Not Good.
So given that the US has the Fascist party, and the “Don’t make waves” party, they’re on a path to full-on authoritarianism unless they can drum up an actual progressive opposition.
♪ We’ve got to fight! Aaginst The Right! With our Paaaaaartay! ♫
The right wing nut jobs were able to take over because they didn’t disrupt the status quo. The DNC will not be reformed because it’s operating exactly as designed.
I don’t disagree with your premise, but you have to understand that this country has a large block that thinks day-today and, when they vote, will just vote opposition when they are unhappy with their life.
Neolib Democrats like Joe Biden and the stonewalling Democratic party from 2012-2016 prompted their fascist successors by linking the DNC with life being awful. Donald Trump lost in 2020 for much of the same, but it is worth noting that he did Almost win because bigotry and Christo-fascism also hold a large influence on the voting block.
Good luck winning with that.
@KelvarCherry
I’m more worried that Zohran sat on his hands as Kamala took on a fascist racist Nazi dictator, but sure.
yeah maybe Zohran Mamdani, who had no political following at the time, should have thrown his hat into the 2024 Democratic primary. When was that again?
Because that’s not who the Democrats represent… They don’t want progressive policies, they want to preserve existing power structures and norms. In any other society, or to anyone who has fucking eyes; this is called conservatism. In America conservatives are cartoon level bat shit crazy fucking lunatics, so it’s easy to mistake Democrat conservatism for progressivism.
No matter who wins the mid terms, nothing donnie2shits did will be undone, and no policies will be reversed. Rights will not be restored to those that have lost them and the dems will accuse you of “magical thinking” for expecting change to be possible
@tburkhol @MicroWave
My question for you is why do you think they don’t produce decent candidates and if you don’t think their candidates are decent why can’t you find a progressive alternative?
I find progressive candidates all the time. They just don’t run on Dem tickets and never will. Last election I voted for Claudia De La Cruz in my solid red state cause it’s not like any Dem candidate could win anyway. If the Dems put up someone like her that had the exact same platform as her and not being willing to play the compromise game with fascists and fascist lite people, then I’d vote for them.
@Ryanmiller70
De la Cruz received 167,772 votes (0.11%) for president. I find the only winners with these kinds of campaigns are the fascists as they steal votes from people who actually have a chance to beat the fascist Nazis.
I suspect you’re not one of the people being held in an ICE detention center now or one of the 14 million people projected to die because of Trump’s U.S. aid cuts nor do you care about them because they’re poor black and African.
You mean the same Ice that went unchecked during both Obama and Biden’s terms? When they could have destroyed them?
@Ryanmiller70
Yes that was the same ICE let’s all pretend to live in your delusional world where that is true. Don’t get me wrong ICE should have been destroyed years ago, but that was not this ICE.
@Ryanmiller70
Great glad you live in the rare area where progressives actually run for office. 90% of the population doesn’t. Play the fascist game like Mamdani?
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2026/05/04/mamdani-nypd-actions-ice-protest-00905703