the big electoral theory Dems still haven’t tested

One great irony of the DSA’s insurgency against the Democratic establishment is that the actual socialism hasn’t been a major flashpoint.

Instead, a slew of Bernie-inspired left-wing populists have (quite successfully) made Israel and ICE the starkest dividing lines of their primaries. And they’ve taken the most heat on issues such as defunding the police; being friends with Hasan Piker; and whether we should finally cancel Arbor Day to remedy the systemic injustices wrought by the imperialist, anti-queer Big Tree lobby – all of which are stand-ins for, “THIS LUNATIC WILL LOSE TO A REPUBLICAN!!”

(The last one was a joke, but admit it: you weren’t 100% Francesca Hong never tweeted that.) Woke 1 was crazyyyy, as the saying goes.

Incidentally, the Republicans aren’t really running against the leftists’ economic populism either – policies your father’s (or older-brother’s!) GOP would’ve torched, like tripling the minimum wage, aggressively taxing wealth, and ending private health care. They’re instead going with, “These woke wackjobs want to abolish prisons and release sex-changed MS-13s to play volleyball against your daughters.”

Perhaps this is all they’ve got, now that working people largely can’t afford life and believe our economic & political systems are fundamentally rigged against them. Indeed, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll of independent voters finds that while the ‘socialist’ label remains toxic, the progressive populist agenda is extremely popular:

Bernie Sanders himself – the progenitor of the modern DSA movement who was once persona non-grata in swing districts – is now among the most popular invitees (at least in certain parts of the country; less so in places like Florida.) Notably, Bernie loathes identity politics.

And generational talent Zohran Mamdani – who has owned the ‘socialist’ label but disowned much of his Great Awokening and (mostly) remained laser-focused on costs – sits at 78% favorability with Black New Yorkers. 1 in 4 NYC Republicans approve of him, further eroding the DSA-punchers’ tidy narratives about leftism’s obvious limits.

All of these dynamics have caused many Democratic operatives (myself included) to wonder, “hey, what if we did the economic populism without the cultural alienation and moral pedantry?” (i.e. run people who work for a living and don’t use phrases like ‘moral pedantry’ or ‘Indigenous folx’)

Which, in turn, helps explain the consultant-class fascination (myself shamefully included) with candidates like Graham Platner, who paired the right core message with an aesthetic, acoustic, and charisma you can’t teach. 

But even without his fatal character flaws, Platner was always a downwardly-mobile elite private school kid – steeped in the language & culture of academic leftism across issues – cosplaying as a proletariat brawler. He wouldn’t have truly tested the theory; none of Dems’ highest-profile statewide candidates this cycle do, unless you count Independent Dan Osborn (NE-Sen).

I’ve paid close attention to the handful of House candidates who earned primary endorsements from both Bernie and moderates, as they tend to fit this mold.

This includes waitress Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), who’s had Sanders, BUTTIGIEG, and SLOTKIN stump for her; smokejumper Sam Forstag (MT-01), who is endorsed by The Bench & Blue Dog PAC, and had AOC visit for a GOTV rally; union ironworker Brian Poindexter (OH-07); and firefighter / labor leader Bob Brooks (PA-07), who’s drawn the broadest support of all.

These crossover candidates all cut a certain image: culturally moderate, economically populist lunch-pail Dems. And perhaps necessarily so, as they’re all running in working-class districts that Trump carried by between 3 and 12 points. 

It’s a profile that (with the possible exception of RUBEN GALLEGO) not a single 2028er neatly matches – and a lane that remains wide open, with plenty of Beltway talent and donors hungry for someone to fill it. So, who else could plausibly fill it?

The most compelling answer for me has always been UAW President Shawn Fain. As I wrote last year, he’s a bulldozer of the status quo, whose brash pugilism on behalf of workers has earned him hero status on the left. 

Fain is charismatic, but talks like an electrician you’d meet on the floor of a factory in Kokomo, IN – which is exactly what he was. Importantly, he doesn’t just bury his head on social issues as the right sows division; instead, listen to how he attacks it:

Beyond Fain, there are normie-populist House members like Chris Deluzio (PA) & Pat Ryan (NY), though both have advanced degrees from Georgetown, and likely have their 2028 sights set on the Senate seats of Sens. Fetterman & Schumer, respectively. 

And then there are longer-shot outsiders who could fashion themselves this way, like Scott Galloway (as a class traitor) or Jon Stewart, both of whom I wrote about in last September’s outsider rankings. 

But you’re probably noticing a theme… 

It seems like only grizzled white dudes get idealized as “populists” – everyone else is branded a radical. Which is ironic, because by far the best blueprint for building a multiracial working-class movement comes from Jesse Jackson.

In 1988, Jesse Jackson nearly won the Democratic presidential nomination on a platform that included single-payer healthcare, tax hikes on the wealthy & corporations, strengthening unions, raising wages, and making huge investments in education, childcare, housing & jobs.

After his 1984 bid appealed mostly to Black voters, Jackson meticulously stitched together the broadest possible version of his Rainbow Coalition in ‘88, drawing direct lines between family farmers suffering “economic violence” at the hands of global corporations and civil rights marchers who’d suffered racial violence in the 60s. 

20 years later, the echoes were unmistakable in Barack Obama’s campaign, as he rode a softened version of Jackson’s broad-based populism to a landslide – and then won reelection by relentlessly casting Mitt Romney as a megamillionaire vulture capitalist. 

And given the left’s persistent struggles with Black voters, arguably the ideal candidate would be a Black economic populist who is culturally mainstream. Or at the very least, does not speak Facultylounge-ese or seek to abolish fireworks.

Maybe RAPHAEL WARNOCK, a reverend like Jackson, could assume this role. He’s not hostile to corporations by nature, nor will he abandon flagship issues like climate, gun violence, mass incarceration, & voting rights. But he’s a uniquely powerful voice on wealth inequality, and has sharpened his critiques of the system of late.

Or maybe it’ll be someone way off the radar. I’m obsessed with MS-Sen nominee Scott Colom, who is maybe too nice to be a full-on populist, but he’s running squarely on affordability, while taking occasional potshots at the LA & NYC libruls who run the Dem Party. Love that. Is he gonna be president in 2029? Almost certainly not. But hey, if he wins this race, he might turn a lot of heads.

And I’m begging people to learn about LA-Sen nominee Jamie Davis, a 3rd-generation farmer from NE Louisiana who – if he were a tatted-up white guy with Morris Katz’s # – would be the subject of 1000 NYT profiles. Another rising star is Dayton Mayor Shenise Turner-Sloss, who upset the incumbent Dem in November. Again, these are ultra-mega-longshots for 2028, but examples of the kind of talent that’s out there.

At the end of the day, there is as much to learn about the great successes of Francesca Hong’s insurgent campaign as the failures.

She built a genuine movement running on “permanent affordability” for working people, taxing the rich, universal childcare, and a data center moratorium – and by going absolutely everywhere.

What’s the swing-state ceiling of such a movement with a more disciplined, telegenic candidate and fewer land acknowledgments? Unfortunately, we still don’t know.

I spoke with…