It’s hot outside. But the DSA is hotter.
Fresh off major primary wins in Colorado and New York, the Democratic Socialists of America is looking to prove that it can translate its momentum beyond deep-blue House primaries and into competitive statewide races.
DSA officials and allies told POLITICO they’ve already shifted organizers, volunteers and resources toward battleground Michigan and Wisconsin, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed is locked in a three-way Democratic primary for Michigan Senate and DSA-backed Francesca Hong is gaining steam in her primary for Wisconsin governor.
Both El-Sayed and Hong are planning a series of major rallies ahead of their primaries, and their campaigns and DSA organizers are currently discussing bringing many of the movement’s biggest stars — including recent winners from New York and Colorado — to generate attention and shore up the broader national effort. That will likely include a trip to Michigan for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who just made a major endorsement for El-Sayed.
“It’s DSA summer. We can’t stop racking up wins,” said Emma Vigeland, co-host of the long-running progressive program The Majority Report, who has campaigned for DSA candidates this primary season. “We’re seeing the culmination of 10 years of democratic socialism becoming more mainstream.”
Sustaining that summer momentum will be a tall task, as the DSA and the insurgent left try to harness the infrastructure they need to extend their wins into the battlegrounds.
But popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) are already planning to hit the trail to boost DSA picks in Michigan and Wisconsin ahead of the August primary.
And DSA membership has surged, according to national co-chair Megan Romer, with more than 7,500 new members signing up nationally since the sweeping victories in the Big Apple.
The DSA held a national members call Thursday night to rally the troops featuring two of the organization’s newest stars: Pennsylvania congressional nominee state Rep. Chris Rabb and Melat Kiros, who this week scored a major primary upset in Colorado over longtime Rep. Diana DeGette. Members also addressed Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent attacks on the group.
“This is a movement moment,” Hong said in an interview, pushing back on skeptics who question whether democratic socialists can win statewide in a state President Donald Trump carried twice. “More and more folks are recognizing that the system is rigged and they deserve a more democratic economy, where the power and control are with the workers and not the establishment, the elites and the mega corporations.”
The democratic socialist surge has been building since Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign brought the movement into the mainstream. But it’s been supercharged by progressive voters’ frustration with Democratic leadership, especially following former President Joe Biden’s late exit during the 2024 race and the party’s tepid response — in the eyes of many in the base — to the second Trump administration.
That anti-Washington sentiment has now resulted in DSA’s most successful primary season yet, putting democratic socialists on pace to have at least eight aligned members of Congress next year, not to mention the mayorships of New York City, Washington and Seattle — with more races still ahead.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In California, DSA-backed Sean Dougherty lost his blanket primary against Rep. Jimmy Panetta, while Chris Bennett fell short against Rep. Kevin Kiley, losses that point to a bigger question ahead: How far can the movement translate its surge of national attention and energy? Especially as establishment Democrats and outside groups look to blunt its momentum — and as Republicans ramp up efforts to turn the group into a campaign boogeyman.
“One of the biggest challenges of organizing is helping people channel their organic excitement — positive or negative — into movement growth,” Romer said. “We’ve built these structures and now we get to help people find their way into them so they can use them to win what they want.”
In Wisconsin, Hong is mounting one of the group’s clearest tests yet of whether a democratic socialist can win statewide, running on affordability and opposition to data center expansion — a message that has boosted her into a leading position in some polling heading into next month’s contest.
Public polling in the Wisconsin governor’s race has been sparse. A Marquette University Law School poll from March showed Hong leading the Democratic field at 14 percent among voters who named a candidate, ahead of Mandela Barnes at 11 percent, with 65 percent still undecided.
Hong, who last week appeared on Piker’s stream and raised over $50,000 from viewers in under an hour, says she plans to try unconventional ways of meeting voters heading into the primary.
“We will continue to be campaigning in creative ways, where people are meeting a candidate where they weren’t expected to meet a gubernatorial candidate — bike rides and dive bars,” she said.
Nearby Michigan is shaping up to be perhaps the most important state on the primary calendar this August for the strength of the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party. El-Sayed is not explicitly backed by DSA, but he’s widely viewed within the movement as part of the same progressive project, and organizers are going all in behind El-Sayed’s Senate campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed El-Sayed during his 2018 gubernatorial bid, joins Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who previously backed him in this campaign, in lining up two of the most influential voices on the left behind him.
“Everybody in the coalition is on the same page, whether it be Justice Dems, whether it be [Working Families Party], whether it be DSA,” said Vincent Vertuccio, Egret Strategies, a consulting firm that has worked with leftists running for office this cycle. He said Michigan is “absolutely the next focus of this national movement.”
Piker, who has become a highly sought-after surrogate for insurgent candidates this primary season, told POLITICO that he was headed to Michigan soon to rally support: “Abdul El-Sayed is not DSA affiliated, but he’s a progressive fighter. He’s a Berniecrat, and I’m excited to help him out to the best of my ability.”
A recent Quantus Insights poll from late June found El-Sayed leading Rep. Haley Stevens 41 percent to 36 percent, with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow trailing at 8 percent.
The DSA has another target in Michigan: Ousting incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar, a former democratic socialist member whom the organization says it expelled over what it described as a “substantial disagreement with the values of DSA.” Thanedar at the time claimed he had renounced his membership, citing the organization’s promotion of a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City in the days immediately after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023.
The representative now faces a DSA-backed challenger in state Rep. Donavan McKinney in Michigan’s 13th District.
Tlaib, an original member of the Squad, is working hard in her backyard to boost both McKinney and El-Sayed. In an interview, she said that the current momentum behind insurgent candidates reminds her of the 2018 wave that first brought her into Congress along with other Squad members, and their frustration once Democrats won unified control in the 2020 elections.
“Democrats had the trifecta and we couldn’t even get the Voting Rights Act passed. We couldn’t even get Build Back Better passed that was about child care and housing,” she said. “These are not years that we can get back for our residents, and especially our children.”
McKinney has hit Thanedar over taking corporate PAC money and questioned his progressive credentials. Tlaib and DSA are banking on their organizing efforts to propel the challenger to victory.
“[Mckinney] was raised in Wayne County all his life. He understands what it feels like to smell like rotten eggs when you go outside because the air is so polluted,” Tlaib added. “People are hungry for folks that will move with urgency.”