Democrats can't shake their DSA problem | Opinion

To paraphrase a famous 2016 line about the "alternative right": A specter is haunting the dinner events, fundraisers and think tanks of the Democratic Party – the specter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

A quick saunter over to the DSA website (whose federal donation page is titled "Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash") shows the left-of-Foucault organization has run or strongly endorsed nearly 200 candidates so far in 2026. As of Sept. 22, DSA's election tracker claimed 67 wins against 60 losses. Sixty-four other races, including many of the biggest, remain undecided.

While the full DSA slate includes contenders for some mundane local jobs ("Ramsey County Commissioner, Minnesota"), multiple candidates have already become familiar names.

In New York City, pro-Palestinian activist Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat in a Democratic primary almost certain to determine who holds his House seat. Given Espaillat's status as chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, it's fair to call this – as Politico put it – "a massive victory for the Democratic Socialists of America and Mayor Zohran Mamdani," one that "cements the DSA ... as one of the city's most potent political forces."

A stark choice for Democrats in midterm elections

Avila Chevalier, a sociology PhD student and former lead organizer of Columbia University's pro-Palestinian "encampment," won despite a trail of now-deleted tweets: calls to abolish the police, borders and deportations; references to former President Joe Biden as a rapist; sympathetic nods to Vladimir Lenin alongside calls to "seize the means of production"; and a post accusing men of "fetishizing ugly colonizer women" – a reference to White women.

When Republican ads called her a "communist," Avila Chevalier declined to deny it, telling MS NOW, "I won't be reactive."

In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, looks like a similar sort of candidate. He isn't formally DSA-endorsed, but he's drawn support from many of the most prominent democratic socialists. The Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants has opened campaign events with controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and once wrote online that he mourned both the American and Arab casualties of 9/11 and the wars that followed.

After that resurfaced, Dr. El-Sayed – he's an epidemiologist – deleted the posts in question from his account.

Scroll through all 200-odd candidates on the DSA's website and a pattern like this repeats again and again. It leaves the Democratic Party with a stark choice: Stay a mainstream liberal coalition or lean hard into democratic socialism.

The latter would be extraordinarily risky. Nearly half of voters under 35 view socialism at least somewhat positively – but it polls far worse with basically everyone else.

Per a CBS News/YouGov poll, just 9% of Americans have a "very positive" view of socialism. The DSA platform itself proposes plenty of things most Americans simply don't support: shifting large corporations, banks and utilities to public ownership, "universal rent control," full cancellation of student debt and a Green New Deal aimed at a full transition to renewable energy.

No antibodies against leftist wing of the Democratic Party

A real problem for Democrats: They lack what might be called antibodies against their comrades further left.

American liberals have long embraced "progressive stacking" – the idea, as DSA's own guidelines put it, that speakers from historically marginalized groups should be prioritized in meetings – and DSA has built the practice into its official chapter bylaws nationwide.

In this context, even after "Woke 1.0," publicly rejecting a DSA activist's claim that the party platform is "problematic" and in need of change is risky for a Democrat running for public office. Most Democratic leaders have avoided that fight. The GOP, for all its flaws, has proved better at reining in its fringe.

Will Democrats give in to their fringe? Probably – but let's hope not.

Both parties today would do well to heed a theme that keeps coming up in my conversations with regular people in my work as an academic and podcaster. As one elegant Kentucky businesswoman put it to me: "What everyone I know wants is sanity. The party that's not crazy first could be in power for 30 years."

Solid advice. Let's see if anyone takes it.

Wilfred Reilly, an associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, is the author of "Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About" and "Hate Crime Hoax."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats can't shake their DSA problem | Opinion

Reporting by Wilfred Reilly, Opinion contributor / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published September 25, 2026 at 2:04 AM.