There is no more dynamic force in Democratic politics — bar none — than the Democratic Socialists of America.
At the same time, the liabilities surrounding the socialist label threaten to limit potential center-left gains in voting in the midterms at a moment when the Republican Party and its candidates are in deep trouble.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last Thursday illustrated the problems posed by the rise of the D.S.A.
A solid 75 percent of Democratic voters said they would consider voting for “a candidate for president who identifies as a democratic socialist.” Among all registered voters, however, a majority (54-42) said that they would not consider supporting a democratic socialist presidential candidate, driven by Republicans (88 percent no, 10 percent yes) and independents and other voters (54 to 36).
Even more decisive were the responses when the Post-Ipsos poll asked, “How much do you like or dislike political leaders who identify as democratic socialists?” A third (33 percent) of Democrats said they like democratic socialist political leaders and 10 percent said they dislike them. Among all voters, in contrast, 42 percent said they disliked democratic socialist political leaders and 17 percent said they liked such politicians — Republicans 70 dislike to 3 like and independents and other voters 30 to 12.
In other words, when it comes to socialism, Democratic voters are the outliers, in opposition to the views of voters overall and especially to the views of independents and Republicans.
In terms of actual politics, the outlier status of democratic socialism reflects the concentration of socialist candidates’ success in deep-blue urban areas where Republicans have little or no chance of winning. At the same time, Republicans are relishing the prospect of capitalizing on voters’ distrust of socialism in purple districts and states, even going so far as to financially support the further-left candidate in Democratic primaries.
There is widespread disagreement among political scientists over estimates of the adverse effect of identifying as a socialist, which ranges from zero to more than five points — enough, at the high end, to alter who wins a majority in the House or the Senate if the races are close. There is more agreement that if the Democratic Party becomes identified as socialist in the public mind, it will cost the party’s candidates two or three percentage points, which is enough by itself to flip some contests.
Lakshya Jain, a machine learning engineer who helped found Split Ticket, which analyzes political and voter trends, and his colleagues have developed an approach to addressing the issue of moderation versus ideological purity that I found particularly useful.
They have created a measure called Wins Above Replacement, borrowed from sports data analysis, that compares a candidate’s winning margin to what the voting history, demographics and other factors suggest the margin would normally be. If a candidate wins by five points in a one-point WAR district, he or she gets a four-point rating.
In a March 2025 essay, “Are Moderates More Electable?,” Jain rated members of three House Democratic caucuses — the more moderate Blue Dogs, the centrist New Democrats and the more liberal Progressive Caucus — from 2018 to 2024.
In each of those two-year cycles, the Blue Dogs WAR ratings were higher than those for the New Democrats and the New Democrats rated higher than the Progressives. The four-cycle average for Blue Dogs was plus 4, for New Democrats plus 0.3 and for the Progressive Caucus members minus 0.7.
In this real-world test, members of the most moderate caucus substantially outperformed expectations, the centrists did slightly better than predicted and the most liberal modestly underperformed.
In an email, Jain wrote, “Generally speaking, identifying as a socialist has, at minimum, been an electoral disadvantage (to the tune of a few points).” He cautioned, however, that “it seems D.S.A. candidates have made a more conscious decision to focus a bit more on cost-of-living matters in this cycle, rather than identity politics.”
Jain estimated that the shift “does make a minor difference. Not enough to take candidates from -5 to +5, but maybe from -5 to -3.”
“In every single cycle,” Jain wrote, “moderation and overperformance had a direct and obvious correlation — and regardless of your thesis for the cause, the effect is clear and undeniable. The easiest explanation for this phenomenon is that ideology really matters, and moderation generally drives overperformance.”
Richard Barton, a professor in the public administration and international affairs department at Syracuse University, developed a different but parallel approach to Jain’s to compare election outcomes for moderate and more left-wing Democratic politicians.
Barton compared 2024 election results for nine D.S.A. and Justice Democrats to less ideological colleagues running in similar districts based on the Partisan Voting Index (the partisan leanings of a district or state) and geography.
He found that “five of the nine D.S.A./J.D. Democrats underperform compared to other Dems in the most similar districts, and four perform more or less on par with Dems in similar districts.” If D.S.A. and Justice Democrats underperform in their own races, Barton wrote, “then we might reasonably infer that, in a nationalized and polarized environment, they likely cause indirect electoral harm to other Democrats in purple and red districts.”
Barton acknowledged that “there is some support for the claim that ideologues can more effectively mobilize the base and activate new voters, but they are also more effective at mobilizing opposition.” Zohran Mamdani, he noted, was the first New York mayoral candidate in more than 50 years to receive more than a million votes, “but he was also the first winning candidate during that period to have over a million votes cast against him. Between countermobilization and losing swing voters, highly ideological candidates (including D.S.A. and Justice Democrats) do not appear to have any measurable electoral advantage, even if they mobilize more supporters.”
Brandice Canes-Wrone, a political scientist at Stanford, perhaps best expresses the consensus — albeit disputed — view of those I asked to comment on the debate over moderation versus progressive left.
“Our best evidence suggests that centrism still helps in general elections, albeit not by enormous amounts,” she said. “The Democrats are on track to do very well this election, due to Trump’s lack of popularity, high oil prices and general midterm trends that favor the out-party. Even so, the size of their midterm gains can be blunted by far-left Democratic candidates who help create a party brand that is less appealing in swing districts.”
Michael Kistner, a political scientist at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and an author of research on these issues with Canes-Wrone, wrote that his view “is that the increasing prominence of D.S.A. and Justice Democrats likely hurts Democratic candidates’ standing with moderate and independent voters on the margin. The reason is not performance in these candidates’ own races, should they win the nomination. Typically these candidates win in solidly Democratic districts. The more salient concern is how these candidates affect the party brand of Democrats nationally.”
There is “good evidence,” Kistner argued, “that party brands — the general reputation and perceived positioning of the party, as seen by the general public — are real and affect election outcomes.”
In practice, Kistner continued, “groups like the D.S.A. being the focus of so much conversation this election cycle likely puts the idea in voters’ minds that a sizable portion of the Democratic Party supports socialist values. This perception should only make it more difficult for a persuadable voter to cast a vote even for a truly moderate candidate,” he said, citing James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, as an example, “if they believe it will empower a Democratic Party that will push for socialist policies if given control of Congress.”
In perhaps the sharpest critique of D.S.A. and other groups on the Democratic left, Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the centrist think tank the Third Way, wrote by email responding to my query: “Since 2018, the moderate New Democrat Coalition Action Fund has managed to flip 50 House seats from red to blue. The D.S.A., Justice Democrats, Our Revolution and the Sunrise Movement can claim zero red-to-blue flipped seats in that time.”
I asked these organizations to respond to Kessler’s claims, but so far only one has. Usamah Andrabi, of Justice Democrats, said the group by definition does not flip seats since it supports only challengers in Democratic primaries and does not engage directly with general election campaigns.
“For some reason, Third Way has an inferiority complex where they keep score for a game we are not even playing to make themselves feel better about how out of touch they are with the Democratic Party’s voters,” he wrote. “Justice Democrats have been focused on supporting insurgent candidates in Democratic primaries in deep-blue districts to transform this party. We endorsed 15 candidates this cycle, all in Democratic primaries in deep-blue districts, and we are having our most successful cycle to date unseating 40 years of Democratic incumbency because the party’s voters are aligned with the movements and agendas our candidates are building.”
Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford, is a leading skeptic of claims that left-wing candidates can significantly undermine Democratic prospects. He wrote by email: “Who wins these primaries matters much less for November than either side of the debate assumes. Control of Congress will be decided by the national environment and the lean of each seat. The electability argument is being fought over effects an order of magnitude smaller than what actually decides majorities.
“Wave elections are made by turnout swings and economic conditions, and those swings are largely set nationally, not by who the nominee is in any given district or state.”
Bonica acknowledged that he and two colleagues have found “0.5 to 1.0 points for nominating a moderate over a progressive. The effect is there.” But, he added, “it is also far too small to carry the argument being built on top of it.”
Bonica cited separate research showing “that nominating a progressive increases Democratic turnout by about 1 percentage point. A more progressive nominee does cost you some swing votes, and it does buy you some turnout. But both effects are small, they point in opposite directions, and on net they seem to cancel.”
Put another way, Bonica wrote, “centrists touting their electability are advertising a 1 percent interest rate on a savings account that charges a 1 percent annual fee.”
Worse still, in Bonica’s assessment, “the Democratic establishment is meeting its first organic energy in years with hostility rather than riding it. Pew has the Democratic Party at 59 percent unfavorable, statistically near identical to the G.O.P., and only 52 percent of Democratic-leaners (voters that identify as independent or with another party but lean Democratic) view the party favorably. Those leaners are generally not persuadable defectors. They need a reason to show up, and they skew younger.”
In reality, the Democratic Party has been vulnerable since the 1960s to wedge-issue attacks on such subjects as civil rights, women’s rights, affirmative action, welfare spending, crime, gun control, gay marriage and transgender rights.
That vulnerability may be the inevitable fate of a party that has an open door and sets out to protect the marginalized. The ascendance of the D.S.A. and its agenda may simply be the latest addition to this list. Republicans who want to conflate democratic socialism with communism would certainly like you to think so.
While there are arguments of varying persuasiveness over whether D.S.A. candidates are endangering the Democratic Party’s already fragile brand, that does not address why the Democratic Party’s establishment candidates are so vulnerable to socialist challengers in the first place.
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