By Tim Reid and Helen Coster
WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) – Democrats head into November’s midterm elections with potential advantages, including the unpopularity of President Donald Trump and voter anger with Republicans over high prices.
But a string of primary victories by left-wing Democrats could complicate party leaders’ efforts to keep the campaign narrowly focused on the cost of living as some candidates advocate a broader reordering of government spending and policy priorities.
Republicans are seizing on those victories to portray Democrats as extreme, hoping to shift attention away from voter dissatisfaction with Trump’s stewardship of the economy.
SURGE SPREADS BEYOND LIBERAL STRONGHOLDS
Four progressive candidates, including three democratic socialists, won competitive Democratic primaries in New York City last week and in Colorado on Tuesday, but the left-wing surge is not confined to liberal bastions.
Progressive candidates have also won contests in Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Many of these candidates argue that tackling the high cost of living means taxing the rich, cutting military spending, opposing U.S. funding for Israel, expanding government-funded programs including a push for universal healthcare, and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They want ICE funds redirected into domestic welfare programs.
“It’s about the choices we are making to offer solutions on affordability,” said Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey Democrat who won his U.S. House primary last month on a progressive platform.
“It’s about where to spend on programs that are going to help our communities, not help the military industrial complex and drop bombs and cause misery overseas,” Hamawy, a former U.S. Army combat surgeon, told Reuters.
While those ideas have appeal among parts of the Democratic base, opinion polls show voters are most focused on kitchen table issues such as the cost of food, housing and healthcare. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll showed the cost of living is the top concern for nearly half of registered voters.
Republicans are now betting that the victories by the left-wing candidates could give them an opportunity to push Democrats onto less favorable terrain: socialism, immigration enforcement and Israel’s war in Gaza.
In a speech last week, Trump previewed what has now become a central Republican line of attack, falsely casting the successful left-wing candidates as communists and “the greatest threat to our country since its founding.”
Socialism favors public control of major industries while allowing some private property and markets. Democratic socialism pursues socialist goals through democratic means. Communism is more radical: it seeks to abolish private property and create a classless society.
‘BOOGEYMAN ATTACKS’
Mike Marinella, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Reuters that his group is “making clear that the same socialist agenda taking hold in New York is spreading to battleground districts across the country.”
That strategy has begun. Denise Powell, the Democratic nominee in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, is more mainstream. But in a May digital ad, the NRCC portrayed her as “a political operative for the far-left dark money machine, trying to transplant her radical left policies here.”
Powell’s campaign manager, Ryan Longenecker, said in a statement, “Nebraskans won’t be fooled – they know Denise is a working mom and bipartisan leader.”
Aidan Johnson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Republicans were “resorting to ineffective boogeyman attacks” because they had failed to bring down prices.
Republicans have long shown an ability to tie Democrats to their most liberal slogans and proposals even when those are not widely embraced by the party. Republicans seized on the “defund the police” slogan in the 2020 and 2022 elections to put Democrats on the defensive even though many party leaders had rejected that call.
Justice Democrats, a progressive group, has endorsed 15 Democratic primary challengers, having backed none in the last midterm cycle. Eight have won their primaries this year in states across the country. More than 20 progressive challengers backed by Track AIPAC, a group critical of U.S. funding of Israel, have won their primaries.
Those wins remain a fraction of Democratic contests nationwide. But they have been enough for Republicans to portray Democrats as a party being pulled further to the left.
Most of the progressive candidates are winning primaries in mostly urban, safe Democratic seats, but with a handful of important exceptions, including a Senate race in Maine and three competitive House seats in Maine, Colorado and California.
Exit polls in the recent races show the winning progressive candidates are drawing enthusiastic support from the party’s core supporters, especially younger voters.
TEST CASE IN MICHIGAN
Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary on August 4 will test whether the party’s left can broaden its appeal beyond Democratic strongholds into battlegrounds that will decide control of Congress.
Abdul El-Sayed, a public health advocate, has made opposition to U.S. support for Israel a centerpiece of his campaign in the state, calling Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide, a conclusion also reached by a U.N. inquiry, several rights groups and a scholars’ association have reached a similar conclusion. Israel rejects the allegation, saying its military targets Hamas and seeks to minimize civilian harm.
El-Sayed has a slight lead in opinion polls over his nearest primary competitor, U.S. Representative Haley Stevens, a more moderate Democrat who has been endorsed by Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat. Stevens supports Israel’s right to defend itself and has not called for an end to U.S. military aid.
El-Sayed disputes the notion that his emphasis on Israel and other progressive causes distracts from the party’s focus on affordability.
“Affordability is about actually tackling systems that make your life unaffordable,” he told Reuters. “Every dollar we send abroad to drop a bomb on somebody else is the dollar we’re not spending on your kid’s school, on your infrastructure.”
OLD POSTS, NEW PROBLEMS
The Republican effort to cast Democrats as extreme has focused in part on Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, a democratic socialist who defeated five-term U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat, 71, in a Democratic primary in New York last week.
During her campaign, old social media posts resurfaced in which she called for abolishing the police, borders and prisons. Avila Chevalier said she regrets the posts, telling Reuters the Republican attacks were “the politics of distraction.”
For Republicans, the posts illustrate the kind of controversy they hope will draw attention away from inflation and other economic concerns.
Centrist Democrats say the danger is that such material could help Republicans define the party by its most left-wing candidates, including in races where Democratic nominees are running on affordability.
“We are very worried they are potentially going to fumble away winnable seats and are providing fodder to the Republicans to use against them and others,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, referring to progressive candidates.
Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, said Bennett’s comments showed “the Democratic establishment’s contempt for their own voters, who are showing them exactly the type of candidates and agendas that excite them.”
Bob Harvie, a more moderate Democrat running to unseat five-term Republican incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick in one of the country’s most competitive U.S. House races near Philadelphia, said any Republican efforts to brand him as extreme will fail.
“If they had a record to run on, that’s what they’d be running on. American voters aren’t stupid,” he said.
(Reporting by Tim Reid and Helen Coster; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
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