Takes Two Wings to Fly
The Democratic Party needs to rebuild the bridge between the progressive movement and the establishment. If not: fascism wins.
Tuesday was another strong night for the left wing of the Democratic Party. Abdul El-Sayed got outspent 11 to 1 — 11 to 1! — and still emerged victorious in the Michigan Senate primary. Progressive candidates won some important down-ballot primaries as well.
But as a lifelong card-carrying member of the progressive wing of our party, while I am happy about these victories, I am not spending a lot of time celebrating until Democrats win enough general election victories to take back the House, the Senate, or both. And we have a long way to go.
Jesse Jackson often said in the 1980s and ‘90s that the Democratic Party needed two wings to fly. He was a progressive happy to throw elbows and have vigorous debates with the establishment wing of the party, but he also understood the importance of coming together.
How Progressives Win Competitive General Elections
I am deeply tired and irritated by all the doom-and-gloom centrists writing off the chances for El-Sayed, Troy Jackson, and other progressive primary victors to win in competitive seats. It hurts the party and hurts our chances in those races, and it is also just bullshit. These are 50/50 districts, states, and elections, whomever the Democratic and Republican candidates are. Every candidate and campaign has challenges. The centrist candidates would have had just as many challenges as the progressive victors, just different ones.
But for progressives to win they have to run smart campaigns. They can’t just turn out the lefty urban base in higher numbers, be clever on social media, and sail to victory — the numbers do not add up. We need a No Arrogance Rule for all of our candidates and campaigns. Our campaigns need to reassure skeptical voters about whose side they are on, listen to those voters about what matters the most to them, and offer substantive ideas about how to improve their lives. Candidates also need to inoculate themselves against the nasty Republican attacks they know are coming, so that voters understand what their values are and that they are not out-of-touch, crazy extremists.
In the primary voting, and in the early general election polling I have seen, El-Sayed is not as strong as he needs to be with Black voters, with rural voters, and with the people I have been working with for years, what I call Factory Town voters — working-class folks from small and medium-sized towns whose lives have been upended by deindustrialization, the opioid crisis, and several years of inflation.
All of the categories of voters I mentioned above are populist voters who are focused on getting a better break from this economy. El-Sayed can win them, but these are cynical people, burned by a hundred politicians making promises that never improved their lives. He is going to have to show he gets it, and that he cares about them.
The other thing progressives have to do to win is to genuinely reach out to the people in the other wing of the party. We can be clever on social media without being so arrogant or making so much of fun of people who should be our allies. Some Democratic primary voters voted for Stevens because potent attack ads instilled fear that El-Sayed was genuinely rough on women. Some worried that a progressive or a Muslim couldn’t win the general election. These Democrats are not bad people, and we need their votes to win this race. Michigan supporters of El-Sayed should reach out to Stevens supporters with open hands and hearts, and welcome them to the table.
Bridge Building Between the Progressive and Establishment Wings of the Party
Throughout the age of Trump, we have heard a lot from party leaders about how we have to all unite, at all costs, to keep Trump and his followers from destroying our democracy. They were right. Now is when the rubber meets the road for the Democratic leadership. Party leaders need to embrace the progressives who win primaries, and show that they are going to do everything possible to help them win those races.
I have heard rumors that the DSCC and Senate Majority PAC are going to hold off on offering full financial support in the Maine and Michigan Senate races, in spite of how urgently we need those seats to have a chance at winning the majority. If that rumor comes to pass, it would be a nightmare for party unity going into 2028.
I was the main liaison to the progressive community in the Clinton campaigns and White House, was the Progressive Liaison for the Obama-Biden Transition Team, and informally helped play that kind of role in the party for many years. My business partner Heather Booth played that role for the Biden campaign in 2020 and Harris campaign in 2024. I can tell you from personal experience that there has always been a lot of tension between the progressive and establishment wings of the party, but the tensions don’t have to devolve into open warfare.
After Democrats didn’t turn out in the disastrous 1994 midterms because they were upset about NAFTA and the collapse of health care reform, Clinton saved his presidency and assured his re-election by joining forces with progressives to fight Newt Gingrich’s massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, education, and environmental programs. After Obama angered both Democrats and swing voters by bailing out Wall Street, we got swamped in the 2010 midterms, but he saved his presidency by running a progressive populist campaign attacking Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital.
And after Biden won the 2020 primary, he joined forces with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, embracing major parts of their platforms, and ran the most progressive populist presidential campaign a Democrat has run since the days of the New Deal, when we won five presidential elections in a row. Biden followed that up by appointing many progressives to economic policy making roles and worked closely with progressives to accomplish more major legislative victories in two years than any president since LBJ in 1965-66.
History is clear: if the Democratic Party leadership pays due respect, and unites with progressives on important parts of their agenda, they win elections and get good policies passed. If on the other hand, party leadership unites with big money interests to wage ugly fights with progressives, whoever wins the primary we will be left sitting with a serious mess to clean up.
Vote Blue No Matter Who
The slogan “vote blue no matter who” became popularized in the 2020 presidential to help unify the party — in an unwieldy 27-person primary field — to defeat Trump and MAGA Republicans. The idea is that while you will never agree with any candidate on everything, in this moment of ultimate peril for our democracy, with the fascist wolf at the door, that any Democrat would be better than a Republican, that Democratic control of government is a million times better than Republican control.
Besides the obvious point that we should not leave authoritarians to take over our government, it’s much easier to win policy fights when you’re in the majority. (Duh.)
While I certainly ascribe to this point, it is also important to note that the slogan has been more often weaponized against more left wing progressive candidates than more centrist ones, as a way to say, “Hey, Lefties, you can’t get everything on your wish list.”
So yeah, we can’t we be purists. However, now progressive candidates on the leftier end of the spectrum are in ascendance with the Democratic primary electorate, and many centrists are threatening to sit out. This is not tenable. You cannot chide lefties to “vote blue no matter who,” and then storm out of the room with all your toys when your preferred candidate loses.
Have fights all you want before the primary is decided, but once the primary is over, you must be gracious and be a team player. (It is great to see Haley Stevens and Gretchen Whitmer doing just that in Michigan.) Otherwise, you are helping Republicans.
General elections are binary choices. Democrats need to have a debate about their future as a party, and I will be firmly on the side of those who want to take on corporate power, get money out of politics, and get health care for all. But with the primary season quickly coming to a close, the time to do it is in the 2028 presidential race, which will be great fun.
Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the party committees they control should go all in to help Abdul El-Sayed, Troy Jackson, Will Lawrence (the progressive House candidate who won the primary to compete in Michigan 7), and other progressives winning primaries in tough general election races. Progressives should welcome the help and do everything in their power to win those races and prove progressive candidates can win swing districts and states.
The forces of fascism will destroy democracy if we don’t all work together. Let’s join forces now that the primary season is coming to a close, and give Democrats a sweeping victory in the 2026 elections... vote blue no matter who!