Leubsdorf: Moderates are winning Democratic contests

For the last two campaigns, Republicans have taken advantage of some loud left-wing Democratic voices to falsely label their entire party as embracing neo-socialist policies and such unpopular ideas as defunding local police departments.

At the same time, however, the Democratic rank-and-file in primaries from Texas to New York has generally spurned leftist alternatives — as it did nationally in 2020 — and the party’s slim congressional majorities have rejected more sweeping expansions of federal programs.

The most recent example occurred when the 50 Senate Democrats finally agreed on a $437 billion spending package of environmental and health measures despite objections from liberals like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who began last year pushing a plan nearly 15 times as large.

In the end, Sanders and the liberal House Democratic majority acquiesced, recognizing this was the most they could get.

Meanwhile, this past week in liberal New York, Democratic primary voters mostly continued their pattern of choosing more centrist alternatives. In a suburban Westchester County district, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a moderate who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, easily fought off a challenge from progressive state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi.

In a newly created Manhattan-Brooklyn district, attorney Daniel Goldman, a House prosecutor in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, defeated several more liberal hopefuls.

But the pattern has not been absolute. Four members of the left-wing House Democratic faction known as the Squad survived recent primary challenges, including New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman. In Minnesota, Rep. Ilhan Omar won a primary fight but by a far smaller margin than two years ago. A young activist won a multicandidate Democratic House primary in Florida.

And earlier, Democrats in two crucial Senate races, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, picked the more liberal candidates.

Notably, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a 2016 Sanders supporter, has dropped his support of “Medicare for All", relying mostly on an “everyman” persona honed as a small-town western Pennsylvania mayor.

He has the good fortune to be facing wealthy television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Trump choice whose Pennsylvania residence has been questioned. Recently, an Oz gaffe went viral, evoking elitist vibes by using the term “crudités” for what his rival said Pennsylvanians call a “veggie tray.”

In Wisconsin, the Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, has also toned down his liberal past, which included support for transferring police department funds to community organizations. He may also be fortunate in his opponent, two-term GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, a businessman who has embraced Trump’s unproven assertions of widespread 2020 fraud.

For the most part, however, Democratic House primaries have been the principal proving grounds for party voters to show if they still favor the more centrist course they embraced In choosing Joe Biden in 2020 over more outspokenly liberal rivals like Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Josh Kraushaar, a nonpartisan analyst now with Axios, concluded recently that Democratic moderates had won a clear majority of contests in “swing” districts where such stances might help in general elections. The results were more even in heavily Democratic districts where more liberal positions aren’t likely to be general election handicaps. But he noted that Gallup’s polling shows more Democrats consider themselves liberals than a decade ago.

This year’s most notable progressive victories were in Pennsylvania, where state Rep. Summer Lee defeated attorney Steve Irwin for an open seat in Pittsburgh, and in Oregon, where attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner unseated moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader. Analysts promptly switched the Oregon seat from leaning Democratic to a tossup.

In other high-profile races, however, progressives suffered notable setbacks. In Ohio, a close Sanders associate, former state Sen. Nina Turner, lost a second race in the Cleveland area to Rep. Shontel Brown; in Michigan’s Detroit suburbs, moderate Rep. Haley Stevens defeated fellow Democratic Rep. Andy Levin; in Maryland’s Washington suburbs, liberal former Rep. Donna Edwards lost a comeback bid against Glenn Ivey; and in south Texas, Jessica Cisneros lost a second challenge to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, considered the most conservative House Democrat. In three more Democratic Texas districts, candidates backed by progressive groups won.

Tuesday’s New York results echoed those of prior Democratic primaries in the Empire State where interim Gov. Kathy Hochul routed a liberal challenger, and former police officer Eric Adams defeated liberal rivals last year to win the New York City mayoralty.

“Tonight, mainstream won,” Maloney exclaimed, following his decisive victory. And Democrats got an apparent national boost by winning a closely contested upstate special election by stressing opposition to the recent Supreme Court decision curbing abortion rights.

Meanwhile, the continuing sway of progressive Democrats within the party’s narrow House majority was underscored when leaders failed to pass a bill decrying efforts to defund the police, because they were unable to bridge disputes with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Party leaders had hoped to help some “frontliners” facing significant GOP challenges in closely divided districts.

But the Democrats got help from an unexpected source: Republicans defending Trump after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago by calling for defunding the FBI.

Their pleas split the GOP, prompting support for federal law enforcement from such major party figures as former Vice President Mike Pence. And they undercut the continuing GOP effort to weaken Democrats by labeling them enemies of law enforcement.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News.

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