From Michigan to New York, progressive Democrats backed by Bernie Sanders and allies are collecting primary victories and forcing a harder conversation—especially on Gaza and money in politics—while local governance tests whether insurgent energy can translate
On the campaign trail, the mood has shifted from strategy to proof.
In Michigan’s open Senate race, Chuck Schumer has made his preference clear: moderate Representative Hayley Stevens. Still. Abdul El-Sayed is climbing in the polls. running on a platform centered on taxing billionaires. ending the corrosive effects of money in politics. and backing Medicare for All. His campaign has drawn endorsements from Bernie Sanders, Representative Ro Khanna, Our Revolution, and the influential United Auto Workers union.
The same kind of momentum is playing out in Maine. where progressives are leaning on voter appetite for something different even when the odds look steep. Oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran Graham Platner has risen in polls. showing the power of Maine’s voters and upstart progressive candidates. Facing almost certain defeat. Schumer’s hand-picked candidate—Governor Janet Mills—suspended her campaign. clearing the path for Platner’s primary victory.
Down the ballot, the left is also using these races to push a different kind of foreign-policy litmus test, with Gaza becoming a defining feature of the contest.
Matt Duss. who has served as a foreign policy adviser to Sanders and occasional Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. has argued that the party’s future could depend on whether Democrats show courage on Gaza. He framed it in terms of trust as much as policy: Democratic voters want leaders “to be on the right side of [Gaza]. ” and the question becomes whether they can be taken seriously rather than simply repeating “the usual set of establishment talking points.”.
That posture is showing up in endorsements. Khanna endorsed activist Elijah Manley, who is challenging Debbie Wasserman Schultz after she jumped into the FL-20 race following redistricting. In the very first line of Khanna’s endorsement, Manley is described as refusing corporate money and opposing genocide.
In NJ-12, Sanders-backed Dr. Adam Hamawy won his June primary. His case is built on service as a medic in Gaza and on a belief that the U.S. should be “spending on healthcare. not bombs.” In California’s 22nd district. Randy Villegas defeated an opponent backed by the Israel lobby. In NJ-11, Analilia Mejia—a labor organizer who has strongly criticized Israel—won a special election for the House seat. In New York. Brad Lander. the city’s comptroller. divested the city’s pension funds from Israel and is now well-positioned to defeat Dan Goldman in the NY-10 primary.
All of those candidates have taken a strong position on Gaza, all are endorsed by Sanders, and all are described as likely to join Congress next year and help reshape the national conversation.
Progressives are also arguing that the insurgent energy at the ballot box can carry into governance. Lander’s former mayoral opponent, Zohran Mamdani, is now in office in New York. In his first months as mayor. Mamdani has produced an array of accomplishments—laying the groundwork to expand free childcare. tapping the first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice. and rebuilding trust in government itself. The city “only gained, not lost,” from a competitive primary process.
That early record is feeding the next push. Building on Mamdani’s coalition, New York’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter has a shot to elect two more members to the U.S. House: Assembly member Claire Valdez in NY-12 and Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13.
Nationally, DSA is also growing. The organization now has over 100,000 members, doubled from roughly 50,000 it had in October 2024—the same month Mamdani launched his mayoral campaign.
The pace may not signal a rapid takeover of the party’s power structure. The coalition’s momentum is real, but the piece does not claim progressives are likely to wrest control away from an entrenched establishment in a single election cycle.
Still, there’s a palpable feeling in the way these campaigns are being run—an insistence on economic populism that refuses to sacrifice compassion, set against a backdrop where the country produced the world’s first trillionaire while workers’ average hourly wages have been sinking slowly.
The organizing approach feels more coordinated than what progressives saw before. The underlying shift traces back to Sanders himself. As a presidential candidate. he appealed to disillusioned Democratic voters in part because of his independent maverick approach—having “the courage. time and again. to be the lone voice speaking up.” But over the last decade. the story has changed: a new generation of political leaders has stepped up. inspired by Sanders. sharing critical views of the Democratic Party while offering an affirmative vision for how much it could become—or finding an electoral home in DSA.
The strategy has shifted as well. Sanders has increasingly endorsed candidates early and strategically. and he has coordinated with “protégés” like Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez—figures who. after being in office long enough to be influential leaders. now help turn renegade energy into a larger. more durable bloc. The result. described here. is a progression from a “smattering of like-minded renegades” into a more established and formidable faction within the Democratic Party.
At the heart of it is a question many voters are asking plainly, and not always politely: Will Democrats nominate people who mean what they say?
Sanders offered a line about loneliness during his 2020 presidential run—“I have cast some lonely votes. Fought some lonely fights. Mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.”—and the current wave of primary victories is being presented as proof that the left thinks it has moved beyond that stage.
With midterm elections now firmly upon the country. the larger test is whether Democratic candidates will do more than occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to Donald Trump—who. as described in the source. spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and has admitted he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation.”.
The challenge for Democrats, as the argument goes, is to seize the moment for bold, small-“d” populist ideas rather than settle for the kind of caution that the piece says has too often cost Democrats “defeat from the jaws of victory.”
At MISRYOUM. the stakes are written into the political terrain itself: voters are pushing back on the idea that elections are only about incremental adjustments. In multiple states and across several races. progressive candidates are pairing economic demands with a Gaza stance and a pledge to refuse establishment reflexes—then asking the party to accept that governing. not just signaling. will be judged next.
Bernie Sanders progressive Democrats primary elections Michigan Senate race Abdul El-Sayed Hayley Stevens Chuck Schumer Maine primary Graham Platner Janet Mills Gaza policy Matt Duss Ro Khanna Elijah Manley Debbie Wasserman Schultz Dr. Adam Hamawy Randy Villegas Analilia Mejia Brad Lander Dan Goldman Zohran Mamdani Claire Valdez Darializa Avila Chevalier Democratic Socialists of America Our Revolution Working Families Party Justice Democrats