Key Takeaways:
A socialist insurgency with 120,000 members is winning Democratic primaries and terrifying the party establishment.
The Democratic Socialists of America, with 120,000 members and a platform calling for abolishing the Senate and police, has won at least four Congressional primaries since June, rattling mainstream Democrats ahead of Tuesday's contests in Missouri and Michigan.
"We're gonna take it over. We're done with this. They're not meeting the American people where they are," said Sara Almosawi, 24, national co-chairwoman of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, describing the group's strategy of primarying incumbent Democrats.
The DSA's annual budget of $9.3 million is a fraction of what a single Democratic super PAC has committed to this year's New Hampshire Senate race. But its army of volunteers — canvassing every door four times — has proven decisive in low-turnout primaries. In June, DSA-backed candidates ousted a 15-term incumbent in a Denver-area House seat and a five-term incumbent in New York. As many as 16 DSA-aligned candidates could sit in New York's state legislature next year.
The insurgency echoes the Tea Party's 2010 takeover of Republican primaries, when grassroots conservatives ousted establishment incumbents and pulled the party rightward. If DSA candidates replicate that playbook, they could shift Democratic policy on Israel, taxation and defense spending — and complicate the party's appeal to swing voters in the November midterms.
About half of the DSA's members joined since late 2024, after Israel's war in Gaza ignited campus protests nationwide and energized young recruits like Almosawi. The pipeline from the encampments to the DSA has been direct: in Denver, local chapters ferried supplies to student protests and held meetings there. Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, a graduate student and organizer of demonstrations at Columbia University, last month knocked off a five-term incumbent in a New York congressional primary — her first run for office.
The DSA's platform, titled "WORKERS DESERVE MORE!", imagines a world without capitalism: a 32-hour workweek, free education, universal healthcare and rent control. It calls for abolishing police and the prison system, eliminating ICE, and ending all U.S. economic and military aid to Israel. The group proposes paying for it by gutting defense and police spending and raising corporate and inheritance taxes.
How the DSA is shifting the Overton window
The group has already moved the Democratic Party's debate on Israel. In June, 58% of Democrats said the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, up from 45% in January 2024, according to an AP-NORC poll. "The student movement was absolutely influential in shifting the Overton window around Palestine," Almosawi said. "In just two years."
The DSA's growing sway has prompted some Democrats to court the movement rather than fight it. Former Vice President Kamala Harris called New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the DSA's highest-profile elected official, after the group's June primary wins, according to people familiar with the conversations. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also considering a presidential run, according to a person familiar with her thinking.
But the establishment pushback is intensifying. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a centrist Democrat from New York, said many Democrats underestimate the threat. "Those of us that disagree with those ideas are kind of talking about the problems we see, wringing our hands at cocktail parties, but we're not as organized as we need to be," he said. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, accused DSA-backed lawmakers of trying to hijack the party. "They're interested in throwing bombs, not actually solving problems," he said.
The DSA will likely hold few House seats next year, but in a tight majority, every vote counts. If the group acts as a bloc — or teams up with other progressives — it could extract policy concessions on spending, taxation and foreign policy. Megan Romer, the DSA's national co-chairwoman, has set an aspirational target of 10 DSA-aligned candidates in the House next year. "Ten is great," she said. "It'd be a lot better with 30. It'd be a lot better with 60."
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