The civil war in the Democratic Party is heating up. Primary day in New York sees several races pitting candidates backed by New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani against less radical incumbents. It’s a classic old vs. young scenario, with age and experience going against youth and enthusiasm.
The younger Democrats are very well-financed and riding a wave of success in some primaries, with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates in position to win several races.
Across the country, the generational war among Democrats is in full swing as the younger cohort, eager for power, looks to supplant the older generation. The radical left’s gaggle of interest groups, NGO’s, and political action committees that exist outside the party structure is fueling the war.
“The formal party structure is getting weaker and outside groups are getting stronger,” said Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome, a centrist Democratic group. He gets no argument from the activists. “We have not been in a place (before) where entire ecosystems of groups are effectively running parties within the parties in explicit, direct, factional warfare.”
This is a battle that experienced politicians don’t need. Many of the radicals are challenging long-serving incumbents, who need all the resources they can muster to defeat a Republican. On the other hand, the young radicals believe that the voters will support their agenda of taxing the rich, punishing corporations, and getting even with Trump.
In fact, Democrats are blaming Trump for the civil war.
The activists are incensed at older Democrats for their inability to stop Trump from tearing up the government and dismantling their aid and financial networks, and to stop Republicans from securing victory after victory in Congress.
“When President Trump is actually in office, and Democratic voters are more frustrated with their party’s capabilities to block him, they go even further in the direction of the left,” said David Wasserman, senior political analyst for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. “It’s not coincidental that 2018 was the initial burst of the Squad and now we are seeing an expansion of it, to a degree we didn’t in the intervening years.”
It’s Trump’s fault that the left is tearing itself apart. Got it.
“There’s a difference between winning in a safe Democratic House district and being competitive nationally, and that’s the tension within the party,” said John Lawrence, who served as Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff while she was House Speaker.
Anger at Donald Trump and Israel, frustration with the status quo, impatience for generational change—these sentiments have been boiling over in Democratic primaries from Durham, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California. In New York they are given greater heat by the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, along with two left-wing groups, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Justice Democrats. As Mr Mamdani works to install loyalists in the congressional delegation, he has surprised the city’s politicos with his ruthlessness. “Regular Democrats are petrified because they know that the Justice Democrats and DSA are running modern, complex, very interesting and exciting campaigns,” says Juan Carlos Polanco, a former president of the board of elections who is now a professor of law at the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. “If they have enough members of Congress that are all in the Mamdani camp, they will be juggernauts.”
But the radicals have yet to find out what it takes to defeat Trump. They claim they want older Democrats to “fight harder,” but what can they realistically do when the GOP has the power?
The formula for success eludes them.
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“What the California Democratic electorate overwhelmingly wanted is a normie Trump fighter,” said Democratic strategist Sean Clegg, who worked on an independent expenditure campaign backing Becerra. “We don’t want to run as the party of the status quo, but (voters said), ‘Give me someone who will hold the center.’ And it was hard to beat.”
I’m not sure how much of a “normie” former Biden HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is, but he was certainly less crazy than “Bernie’s billionaire” Tom Steyer.
The results in House races tip the overall score toward the left. Centrists have beaten progressives in House races in California, Texas and North Carolina. But in California alone, progressives advanced in several other key House contests — including by beating an establishment-backed candidate for the right to oppose vulnerable Republican Rep. David Valadao. Progressive choices have also won hotly contested House primary races in New Jersey, Montana, Maine, Ohio and Pennsylvania districts that might have seemed unfavorable terrain.
Without a doubt, the Democratic caucus in Congress next year will be far more radical than it is now, regardless of whether the Dems take control of the House. That may play well for Republicans heading into 2028, who will have their own battle royale to decide who succeeds Donald Trump.
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