Backlash from centrist Democrats as democratic socialist candidates sweep primaries

After a string of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) primary victories, the loudest response from much of the Democratic establishment’s old guard was not reconciliation, but escalation.

Over the last few days, prominent party figures have moved away from unifying under a “blue no matter who” banner to push for a more formal break with their left flank, and said the moment may have arrived for Democrats to confront their more socialist wing.

“I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the S-word: schism,” James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist and former Bill Clinton adviser, said on his podcast. He added that some DSA-aligned candidates “have no place in the Democratic party” and, of the broader coalition: “I’m not in that fucking political party.”

Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the Democratic national committee, directed a pointed message at candidates running under the party’s banner while openly criticizing its direction.

“I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” Harrison wrote on social media. “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Focus on building the party you actually support.”

The recent results in New York City were the latest in a run of DSA-aligned wins that have spanned the primary calendar. Earlier this cycle, progressives claimed victories in Maine, New Jersey, California and Philadelphia, where state representative Chris Rabb won a congressional primary in May, and more elections just around the corner.

The DSA has endorsed about 150 candidates this cycle, according to an analysis by the Washington Examiner, with 35 either winning primaries or advancing without opposition, in races stretching across Oregon, California, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New York.

Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff, offered a structural diagnosis. “What the socialist wing has decided to do is turn blue districts, dark blue,” he told CNN, arguing that Democrats had broadly “lost the plot” by becoming mired in niche concerns rather than mainstream US priorities.

Former New York governor David Paterson warned on 77 WABC radio that the party risked something more fundamental than an electoral setback. “We’d better get that message and turn it around before we become extinct,” he said.

On the organizational front, a group of House Democrats aligned with a new centrist initiative, launched in the immediate aftermath of the democratic socialist victories, framed the wins as a reputational liability. “They should not be the face of our party,” the group declared, positioning the effort explicitly as a corrective to the party’s direction.

The data, however, offers a more complicated picture of where the Democratic base actually stands. A Fox News poll in March showed that 49% of all registered voters, including 72% of Democrats and 60% of independents, described capitalism as working “not very” or “not at all” well.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten pointed to a poll from Marquette Law School that found the DSA now holds higher favorability than sitting congressional Democrats, from Democratic voters and leaners themselves.

In his segment, Enten summarized it by saying: “Simply put, they’re more popular than the Democrats currently in charge.”

National polling also consistently shows that cost of living and affordability – which often comprise the center of democratic socialists’ platforms – remain the dominant concerns for US voters. And younger and more liberal Democrats are significantly more likely to express support for generational change within the party’s leadership.

It’s an opening that the DSA isn’t shying away from, with its sights set beyond the November midterms. DSA’s national co-chair, Megan Romer, told Politico last week that the group was dispatching surveys to all 250 of its chapters this summer, asking members to weigh in on who should carry the democratic socialist banner into 2028, with responses due back to national leadership by 15 September.

“What DSA represents is a real contrast to Democrats who have run the last couple of elections on fear,” Romer said. “You can’t run on that. You have to offer an alternative.

The fierce establishment reaction was a notably different posture from that adopted by House minority leader and New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, himself a figure the DSA has openly targeted.

When asked on CNBC about DSA supporters chanting “you’re next” at a screen showing his face, Jeffries pointed to Donald Trump. “Our focus is going to be on ending this national nightmare in this country,” he said.

By Saturday, Jeffries had publicly congratulated the nominees on social media. “From public servants to union organizers to community activists, the path is different but the work is the same,” he wrote. “We must decisively address the affordability crisis and crush far-right extremism.”