Are The Democratic Socialists Winning or Losing?

2026-08-13 09:45:00 • 29:40

-

Accenture is working together with the NFL to drive international growth by evaluating

0:05

markets, developing audience insights, and creating new ways to engage fans and cities

0:10

around the world.

0:12

The NFL is building a global game.

0:14

An Accenture is helping make that vision a reality by striking the right balance between

0:19

what makes the NFL beloved in America and tapping into the passions and preferences that

0:24

make each market unique.

0:26

Accenture, the official business and technology consulting partner of the NFL.

0:30

Learn more at Accenture.com slash NFL.

0:36

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittro-F.

0:39

This is The Daily.

0:49

The left wing of the Democratic Party has now faced key tests in two swing states, and the

0:54

results were mixed.

0:57

On Tuesday, Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong lost the Democratic nomination for governor

1:02

in Wisconsin in an upset after leading by double digits in the polls.

1:08

And last week in Michigan, despite being heavily outspent by his opponent, Abdul El-Sahed won

1:14

the Democratic nomination for Senate by a slim margin.

1:19

Today, my colleague, Chief Political Analyst Nate Cohn, helps make sense of those conflicting

1:25

outcomes and explains what they tell us about the state of the populist left in Democratic

1:31

politics.

1:34

It's Thursday, August 13th.

1:43

Nate, welcome back to The Daily.

1:45

It's wonderful to have you here.

1:48

Great to be here.

1:49

So we want to talk today about what this moment means for the Democratic Party.

1:53

For the past ten years, it feels as though we've been talking about this divide in the party

1:57

between the progressive left and the moderate establishment.

2:01

And it feels like the story of this primary season for Democrats is to what extent is

2:06

that progressive flank ascendant in the party and in national politics.

2:12

In the last two weeks, one of those candidates, narrowly one in Michigan and another narrow

2:18

ly lost in Wisconsin.

2:19

I don't totally know what to make of that.

2:21

It feels a little confusing to me, but fortunately, that's what we have you for.

2:25

So Nate, what should we make of that?

2:28

Fortunately, I think it isn't very confusing.

2:31

It's pre-clarifying.

2:32

Oh.

2:33

We've had two raises and two weeks in states that are presidential battleground states reasonably

2:38

representative of the country politically in different ways, where the progressive left

2:42

has essentially been tied a little bit ahead or a little bit behind with their establishment

2:49

rivals.

2:50

This is pretty different from what we've seen over most of the last ten years when the

2:53

progressive left has basically only been reliably competitive and heavily democratic, young,

2:59

highly educated urban areas.

3:01

Now that can happen twice in two weeks after all in presidential battleground states,

3:06

and therefore perhaps even nationwide that still comes with limits.

3:10

There are large parts of these states where the progressive candidates aren't faring

3:13

very well.

3:14

And that suggests there are also large parts of the country where the progressive left

3:17

wouldn't fare very well.

3:19

But this represents a really significant improvement in their standing within the democratic

3:23

party compared to where they seem to stand just a few years ago.

3:26

Okay.

3:27

I want to dig deeper into what you actually mean by the limits that these candidates are

3:31

facing and what they've actually gained.

3:34

But before we do, can you just spell out what we mean exactly when we talk about the

3:39

left here?

3:41

Like, who are these candidates?

3:43

I heard a sigh.

3:45

It's a little challenging to define.

3:47

We don't just mean progressives after all.

3:48

Progressives have been winning democratic primaries for decades, half of Democrats in

3:52

Congress could be said to be progressives in some form or another.

3:56

We mean a new kind of young activist backed candidate of, for lack of a better word, the

4:02

progressive left.

4:03

Mm-hmm.

4:04

I think the core of this new activist progressive left are the self-identified democratic

4:08

socialist, Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and their allies.

4:14

Beyond them, though, there is a group of politicians who looks a lot like them, but does not necessarily

4:20

characterize themselves as democratic socialist.

4:22

Like who?

4:23

Dr. Abdul-El-Sayed in Michigan is one great example.

4:27

He was endorsed by both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, but he doesn't call himself a democratic socialist.

4:32

But it's hard to see why he's not a democratic socialist.

4:34

He doesn't distinguish himself from them on the issues in many ways.

4:37

And he's comfortable outlying with them and importantly outlying with them against

4:41

the mainstream of the democratic party.

4:43

To data wise, when you look at the numbers, which are your bread and butter, you're looking

4:46

at candidates who are either members of the democratic socialist organization or are

4:53

effectively part of that platform.

4:55

They are aligned with many aspects of it.

4:57

Yeah, there are a lot of different ways to define it, but they stand apart from not only

5:01

the establishment moderate in the democratic party, but also the kind of progressive candidate

5:05

who's been winning in the democratic party for a long time.

5:07

Okay.

5:08

And the question going into the last couple of weeks right was whether this progressive

5:12

left could win, not just in places like New York, deep blue areas, but in purple areas,

5:19

states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

5:21

So let's get into what we learned from the two democratic primaries in those states.

5:27

I think the most obvious thing we learned is that yes, the progressive left can compete

5:31

in these states.

5:32

Now it's worth noting that each of these races are idiosyncratic primaries.

5:36

They have different candidates with different strengths and weaknesses in Michigan in a primary

5:41

for US Senate.

5:43

Democrat Dr. Abdul-Elsaid ran a campaign that received a lot of enthusiasm from progressives across

5:51

the country.

5:52

And he ran against Congresswoman Haley Stevens, an establishment back candidate who had the

5:57

advantage of tens of millions of dollars in advertisements, even though she had her own

6:01

liabilities like being a really strong supporter of Israel at a time when that's pretty unpopular

6:06

among rank and file Democrats.

6:08

There was a totally different set of circumstances in Wisconsin.

6:12

That was a race for governor where Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, did not run an

6:17

especially strong race.

6:18

She did not earn endorsements from people like Alexandria, Acacia Cortez, or Bernie Sanders.

6:23

She had a long track record of posting and making remarks on social media that did not

6:29

make her seem like a terribly compelling politician.

6:32

Much of the final week of the campaign was spent litigating social media posts about how

6:36

she had problems with Thanksgiving and Halloween.

6:39

This was not necessarily the best candidate that the progressive left has put forward.

6:43

On the other hand, the moderate wing of the Democratic Party almost failed to put forward

6:48

a candidate in this race.

6:49

It cycled through multiple potential front runners who entered the race and dropped out

6:53

of the race.

6:54

And in some cases came back into the race.

6:56

And only in the final days of the campaign did the party appear to coalesce behind David

7:00

Crowley, who was a relatively unknown candidate from Milwaukee County, but who did not have

7:06

any statewide reputation or tens of millions of dollars backing him during the campaign.

7:11

But despite all the differences that we just worked through between these two different

7:14

races, we still ended up with the same basic result.

7:18

Michigan and Wisconsin ended up essentially dead even.

7:21

The progressive candidate narrowly won one race and narrowly lost the other.

7:25

But the story was basically the same.

7:26

The same demographic groups aligned between each ones.

7:29

They showed the same strengths.

7:30

They showed the same weaknesses.

7:32

And the fact that the results are so similar suggests that the most powerful factor that

7:37

shaping what's happening in these races are these underlying big divides in the national

7:42

Democratic Party, not the idiosyncrasities of these races.

7:45

And so I think we can learn a lot from them as a result.

7:47

All right.

7:48

Nate, walk us through those underlying divides.

7:51

What were the demographic groups that aligned behind these progressive left candidates?

7:55

I think you have to start with age.

7:57

The most obvious thing that's driving support for the progressive left, both in the actual

8:01

results when you look at it precinct by precincter County by county and in the polling is that

8:05

young voters overwhelmingly back the candidates of the progressive left while older voters support

8:11

moderate established from candidates.

8:13

The polls say that they won overwhelming margins like 60, 70, maybe even 80% of the vote.

8:18

And that's what we see in the youngest neighborhoods and precincts of these states, particularly

8:24

on the college campuses of the big flagship universities like the University of Michigan

8:28

or the University of Wisconsin Madison.

8:29

There are precincts where else I had one 95% of the vote in Ann Arbor.

8:33

There are precincts that are sort of for lack of a better word, young hip gentrifying neighborhoods

8:39

in Milwaukee where you see similarly maybe not 95% of the outside margins, but 70, 80% margins,

8:46

even for Francesca Hong.

8:47

That is crazy.

8:49

Why do you think that is?

8:50

Do we have a sense of what is driving young voters and not older voters to these candidates?

8:55

Well, in some sense, this is a story that we've seen in the Democratic Party for decades.

8:58

Now, young voters who come of age and are dissatisfied with the country and want to see

9:03

changes then look naturally to something that's even farther to the left of what the Democratic

9:08

Party has offered in the past.

9:09

And then that's what the young voters campaign on, whether it's in the 1960s and the civil

9:13

rights movement, Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton, or now other Democratic socialists

9:18

against the kind of mainstream progressivism of the Obama era.

9:22

I think that sentiment has been supercharged by some particular factors to this moment.

9:26

The struggles that young people think they have in today's post-financial crisis economy.

9:32

And I think it's also worth mentioning the way that for lack of a better word, the intellectual

9:36

climate of today's age shapes the views of young voters.

9:39

There are ideas from academia about capitalism and sexism and white supremacy.

9:45

In intersectionality, they're all very familiar to us today, but which an older generation

9:48

of college graduates had never heard of, even while we're all familiar with Judith Butler

9:52

or something.

9:53

So I think this really shapes the kind of ideas that young college educated voters are receptive

10:00

to.

10:01

So although in the past, they've always been kind of receptive to the most left candidate.

10:04

It's now being channeled into a particular set of ideas that older generations don't

10:08

even know about, let alone support.

10:10

Okay, so these candidates did numbers with younger voters.

10:15

What else does the data say about the divides here, about the coalitions?

10:19

I think the next biggest divide, it's maybe easier to talk about by flipping it around

10:23

and saying where did the moderates do best?

10:26

And in both states, high income neighborhoods, high income voters stand out as a major

10:32

area of strength for moderates with income in general, just being one of the key fault

10:36

lines here.

10:38

Neighborhoods where people make $150,000 or more, there were often cases where the moderate

10:44

candidates won by two to one.

10:46

I don't think this should be terribly surprising, but if the progressive left in general,

10:49

and these candidates specifically really stand for anything in terms of policy, it's to

10:54

take on the billionaires, corporations, and wealth inequality in the country.

10:59

And it makes sense that high income voters would be particularly hesitant to embrace those

11:04

kind of candidates.

11:06

And you go below the high income group, there's a lot more heterogeneity in the results.

11:11

And part of that comes down to age, right?

11:13

There are low income voters who are young college kids or people just out of college who

11:19

are very supportive of the progressives.

11:20

And then there are also low income older voters and those low income older voters may still

11:24

support the establishment.

11:26

Uh huh.

11:27

And I think there's one additional point to make and that's the divide over race.

11:31

The establishment candidates in both of these contests did really well among black voters.

11:36

Now, it's worth noting that, as I've mentioned, both these races are idiosyncratic and both

11:41

of the establishment friendly candidates had particularly strong cases for black voters.

11:46

Haley Stevens trumpeted her work with the Obama administration on the Detroit Auto bailout.

11:51

David Crowley is African American himself.

11:53

So he had natural appeal to Milwaukee's black voters.

11:57

And it's worth noting that we have seen over and over again that establishment back candidates

12:02

do better than progressive candidates among black voters.

12:06

I feel like I'm turning into a broken record here, Nate, but why do we know why that is?

12:10

I think the easiest place to start is to remember that black voters almost unanimously

12:14

support Democrats and many black voters support Democrats, regardless of their views on

12:21

the issues.

12:22

Many more moderate or even conservative black voters who vote for Democrats than other

12:27

racial groups because for other racial groups, the moderate and conservative voters would

12:30

just vote Republican.

12:32

So in the black primary electorate, you have many more moderate and conservative black voters

12:36

who at the very least are not exactly receptive to the case for for Democratic socialism or

12:42

may even outright oppose it.

12:44

The other thing to keep in mind is that in many Democratic primaries as of late, older

12:49

black voters have turned out at much higher levels than young voters.

12:54

It may be the case that young black voters support the progressive candidates in these

12:57

races and just really hard to tell because the turnout among young black voters has been

13:01

really low really in some ways.

13:03

It's been really low since the Obama era.

13:04

So we have a disproportionately older group of black voters who's participating in these

13:08

primaries as well.

13:09

And again, old voters, regardless of race, are backing the establishment candidate.

13:13

Bottom line, Nate, at this moment, when we see these areas of strength and of weakness

13:18

for the progressive left being highlighted, should we think of this movement that Bernie

13:23

Sanders more or less started in 2016 as ascendant and gaining ground or stalling out?

13:30

I think we should think of it as ascendant and gaining ground, especially if we bracket

13:33

Bernie Sanders aside for a second.

13:35

If you bracket aside his campaign, we've watched the progressive left grow from only occasionally

13:40

winning a handful of primaries in the nation's most highly educated and democratic cities

13:46

to now competing statewide in classic battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

13:57

That said, this is a very different kind of progressive coalition than the one that Bernie

14:01

Sanders put together back in 2016.

14:04

And it's different in ways that say a lot about where the progressive movement might be

14:08

heading in 2028 and beyond.

14:13

We'll be right back.

14:17

Accenture is working together with the NFL to drive international growth by evaluating

14:22

markets, developing audience insights, and creating new ways to engage fans and cities

14:28

around the world.

14:29

The NFL is building a global game.

14:32

An Accenture is helping make that vision a reality by striking the right balance between

14:37

what makes the NFL beloved in America and tapping into the passions and preferences that

14:41

make each market unique.

14:43

Accenture, the official business and technology consulting partner of the NFL, learn more

14:48

at Accenture.com slash NFL.

14:53

The New York Times app unlocked?

14:56

Everyone knows the times as behind a paywall.

14:59

Only subscribers have access to all the reporting.

15:03

But what if you could explore the times for a month for free without putting in a credit

15:07

card?

15:08

Now you can.

15:10

When you download the New York Times app for the first time, your first month in the app

15:13

is free.

15:14

A month to go behind the paywall.

15:16

To see what time subscribers get every single day.

15:20

All the investigations, the reviews, the recipes, the deeply reported fact-based journalism.

15:26

If you don't already subscribe to The New York Times, download the Times app today and

15:30

get free access for 30 days.

15:34

Nate, describe exactly how the progressive coalition has changed since 2016.

15:40

I think to understand it's worth stepping back and remembering what the Bernie Sanders coalition

15:46

looked like in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

15:49

At its core, there was the same young progressive democratic socialist activist group that's still

15:55

at the core of the progressive movement today.

15:59

But what's changed is the group of voters beyond that democratic socialist core, the sort

16:03

of swing voters of democratic primary politics, the people who aren't necessarily true believers,

16:08

but who preferred Bernie Sanders to his opponent Hillary Clinton.

16:15

In that election in 2016, the voters who preferred Sanders to Clinton even though they weren't

16:19

true believers were mostly working class and particularly working class white voters.

16:25

Bernie Sanders swept rural parts of Michigan and Wisconsin.

16:29

And he did so in part because he was relentlessly focused on a populous message.

16:33

And in part because Hillary Clinton was sort of the perfect foil on economic populist issues,

16:37

she had back NAFTA and had taken all of this money from speeches, from corporations,

16:43

and so on.

16:44

And she also campaigned pretty heavily on identity politics for lack of a better word.

16:49

In that election, she was the candidate trying to rally the supporters of Black Lives Matter.

16:53

And she was also running as potentially the first female president.

16:55

And those were major points of emphasis in her campaign.

16:58

And together that seemed to give Bernie Sanders the edge among white working class Democrats

17:03

across much of the Northern United States in particular.

17:06

And even once she became the nominee, Hillary Clinton still struggled among these voters.

17:10

Many of them actually ended up backing Donald Trump and have been part of the Republican

17:15

coalition really ever since and they haven't even been available to candidates of the progressive

17:19

left in many cases.

17:20

If you were to look at the map of Wisconsin and Michigan the last couple of weeks compared

17:24

to the 2016 one, they look completely different.

17:27

They're not winning those rural areas anymore.

17:31

And just say why Nate?

17:32

Because the core of the argument for a lot of these left-wing candidates is economic populism,

17:38

right?

17:39

I mean, El Sayyads campaign slogan was money out of politics, money in your pocket,

17:42

Medicare for all.

17:43

It's absolutely an important part of their message.

17:46

And as I alluded to earlier, they do tend to do better among lower income voters than

17:50

certainly rich voters.

17:52

But this is not necessarily nearly as central to their message as it was to Bernie Sanders'

17:58

message.

17:59

And conversely, I'm not sure that today's moderate Democrats are as vulnerable on these

18:03

issues as Hillary Clinton was.

18:05

There is on balance compared to 2016 much more emphasis by progressives on non-economic

18:11

issues period, Gaza, for instance.

18:14

And now I'm not saying that Gaza alienates white working class Democrats.

18:17

But every second that you spend talking about Gaza is a second you're not talking about

18:21

as Bernie would put it, the millionaires and the billionaires, right?

18:24

And so if most of the conversation about your campaign is about the issues that animate

18:30

activist progressives, the fact that you then try and turn your message back to putting

18:35

money in people's pockets won't be as powerful as it would be if that were all you were

18:38

talking about.

18:39

And I think it's fair to say that's what the Bernie Sanders campaign did in 2016 that

18:42

we just don't see from progressive sense then.

18:45

Got it.

18:46

So today's progressives have made up for this by doing much better than Bernie Sanders

18:49

did among a different group of voters who are sort of outside that core democratic socialist

18:54

activist base, which is they're doing much better among for lack of better work, kind

18:59

of mainstream progressive liberals.

19:01

You can imagine the sort of person who watches MSNBC and the suburbs, for instance, who

19:05

voted for Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden in 2020.

19:09

They're actually quite sympathetic to what the progressives have to say about all of

19:12

the various issues we just talked about like Gaza or the Black Lives Matter movement.

19:16

They may not be democratic socialists, but they are real progressives.

19:21

And in the past, they didn't support Bernie Sanders and they have been voting for mainstream

19:26

Democrats.

19:27

But now they're pretty disillusioned with the Democratic Party.

19:29

It's failed to make good on its promise to defeat Donald Trump.

19:32

They want to see someone fight back against Donald Trump in Washington and they're just looking

19:37

for a candidate who offers bigger kind of changes to a country that voters have been

19:41

to satisfy with for decades.

19:42

And right now, the Democratic Socialist Progressive Act of its wing of the Democratic Party is offering

19:47

something like that.

19:48

And so these voters who have voted maybe for more moderate candidates in the past, they're

19:52

pretty open to backing progressive candidates today.

19:56

Those folks basically aren't alienated by some of that culture war messaging.

20:00

They may even like it.

20:01

They may like it and they're so frustrated with the Democratic establishment that they

20:05

want a cast of protest vote in some cases.

20:08

And I think it could be even more than a protest vote.

20:10

They may look at the Democratic Socialists and say, you know what?

20:13

I've always supported universal healthcare and that's what they say they support too.

20:17

I don't like what Israel is doing.

20:19

I agree with that.

20:20

So they may not, again, consider themselves Democratic Socialists.

20:22

They may not be activists for the Democratic Socialist cause, but they may not see themselves

20:28

as very different on a long list of issues.

20:31

I guess my question is, is that a winning coalition?

20:34

Is that enough to win in purple places in a general election?

20:38

No.

20:39

I mean, you can win a Democratic primary with a core of Democratic Socialist plus sort

20:46

of mainstream liberals, but to win a general election, you need to win a lot more than

20:50

that.

20:51

You have to win the rank and file of the Democratic Party and then a lot of more moderate

20:54

voters who don't consider themselves Democrats who are independence or who may even in

20:59

some cases be relatively conservative voters.

21:01

Then does that suggest that these candidates will have to kind of win back those white working

21:07

class voters, the ones who voted for Trump?

21:09

And if they stick to the economic populism message and de-emphasize the other stuff, is

21:15

that a path forward?

21:16

Do they need to do that to broaden their coalition?

21:20

Well, I think that's what the Progressive C for themselves.

21:23

I think they want to try and win back some number of white working class or at least working

21:28

class voters in general with a message focused on economic populism.

21:31

I don't think that's necessarily very realistic.

21:34

You can sort of see that in its own way in these Democratic primaries.

21:37

They can talk about economic populism a lot.

21:41

They can even make that the focus of their campaign, so the extent they can.

21:45

But they're going to be defined by the broader set of issues that they're associated with

21:48

and that they're really passionate about.

21:50

There's not going to be a version of Dr. El Sayed who doesn't talk about Gaza and who

21:55

doesn't talk about all the other issues that Progressives have been campaigning on for

21:59

the last 10 years.

22:00

But to win a general election, they're probably going to need to win and a fairly

22:04

conventional weight for a Democrat to try and be acceptable enough to voters who are dissatisfied

22:11

with Donald Trump.

22:13

Some of them are working class, some of them are rich and affluent, some of them may be

22:17

the kind of voters that Progressives dream of winning.

22:20

And some of them may bear no resemblance to that.

22:22

But they're stuck playing, I think, a fundamentally conventional general election game.

22:26

Nate, another big part of this debate among Democrats is whether these socialists or

22:31

socialists adjacent candidates may drag Democrats down in other parts of the country by giving

22:36

Republicans this opening to cast the entire party as too radical.

22:41

How do you think that dynamic might play out as we get closer to the general?

22:45

Well, I think it's true to some extent.

22:48

When you vote for a Democratic candidate, you're voting both for the person and to put

22:52

a party in power.

22:53

And to the extent voters sour on putting the Democratic Party in power because they perceive

22:58

it as being farther left than they are, that could hurt Democratic candidates in parts

23:02

of the country who have nothing to do with the progressive left.

23:06

That said, I think in most of these races that Democratic candidates will succeed in defining

23:11

themselves, certainly the strong Democratic candidates with their own individual brands

23:15

who have the resources to air television advertisements about themselves, they have an

23:18

opportunity to define themselves.

23:20

So I wouldn't expect it to prevent more moderate Democrats from winning in much of the country,

23:26

and if it is undoubtedly some additional burden that they have to overcome.

23:29

Obviously, we spent this time looking at, as you said, idiosyncratic races.

23:34

So I don't want to extrapolate too much here, but given the broader dynamics that you've

23:39

laid out about this left wing coalition, I wonder how you're also thinking about its

23:43

place in the future of the party beyond these midterms.

23:47

Like, Crystal Ball, a little bit for me.

23:51

There's an unmistakable trend towards the progressive left in Democratic politics.

23:55

We've talked about that already.

23:56

And as generations turn over, and more young people enter the Democratic electorate and

24:00

as more older moderates age out of the Democratic electorate, I think it's possible we could

24:04

see this trend continue.

24:06

It would not surprise me to see a candidate progressive left win the Democratic nomination

24:11

in 2028 if they have a strong enough candidate to pull it off or if the establishment is disorganized

24:15

like it was in Wisconsin.

24:17

Now that said, it doesn't make it inevitable that progressive activists will take over

24:21

the Democratic party.

24:22

And mainstream Democrats will try and co-opt elements of this message.

24:26

They're going to try and appeal on the same kind of themes about economic populism.

24:30

We just saw Gavin Newsom say the divide in America in politics today is in between left

24:35

and right.

24:36

It's between top and down.

24:37

Mainstream Democrats are getting a message here.

24:38

And this is pretty common in American politics that activists elevate and issue in the mainstream

24:42

of the party ultimately subsumes it.

24:44

But then what would happen to all of the more hardcore supporters of that socialist DSA

24:50

platform?

24:51

Imagine that they would get on board for a much more diluted version of the thing that

24:56

has them so energized.

24:59

This is a cop out answer, but it'll obviously vary from person to person group to group.

25:03

There are going to be some die hard Democratic socialists who will say that any person who

25:08

doesn't reject the system of capitalism is complicit in the oppression of, you know,

25:12

the working classes around the world, right?

25:13

There are also going to be progressives who understand that it's important to work within

25:17

the Democratic Party to gradually change it over time and in different cases.

25:22

The relative balance of which two paths, different parts of the left take is going to vary.

25:27

If Gavin Newsom wins the Democratic nomination because he adopted a buzzword about top versus

25:32

bottom, it's going to be a little different than if it's, say, a John Ossoff who centers corruption

25:37

and taking on the billionaires in this campaign, right?

25:39

So there are a lot of subtleties here.

25:41

But I think over the long run, the thing that's sort of guaranteed is that if the progressive

25:46

left becomes strong enough the Democratic Party, it is going to change the Democratic Party

25:49

one way or another.

25:51

If the mainstream of the party resists it, that's when you have the opportunity for a real

25:55

hostile takeover like what happened to the Republicans.

25:58

I think it's too early to say whether we're going to see something more like a hostile

26:01

takeover or more like the mainstream of the Democratic Party letting the Democratic Socialists

26:06

in and gradually allow it to change the party.

26:09

In some cases, you'll see some of both.

26:12

I think over the medium term, I would expect to see the mainstream of the Democratic Party

26:15

try and embrace economic populism, try and take a more anti-Israel stance.

26:22

That may be enough to prevent a true takeover of the Democratic Party by Democratic Socialists,

26:27

even as the Democratic Party moves to the left as a consequence.

26:34

But the natural tendency for a party is to try and assimilate all of its parts and to

26:39

forge a coalition to use a word that we've used probably too many times in this episode.

26:44

That's the natural way for the party to end up.

26:48

Well, Nate, I love having you in my coalition as a colleague.

26:59

Oh, God.

27:00

And thanks for coming on the show.

27:02

Thanks for having me.

27:06

Hello.

27:13

Hi, this is Jody.

27:21

Hi Jody, how are you?

27:22

This is Caitlin calling for The New York Times.

27:24

Good, how are you?

27:25

I'm doing well.

27:26

I really appreciate you taking some time to talk to me.

27:29

Yeah, we're in an interesting state, no?

27:33

You really are.

27:36

How does it feel?

27:37

It's stressful, totally stressful, because there's so much at stake.

27:45

On Wednesday, one day after the Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin, Daily Producer

27:51

Caitlin O'Keefe called voters there to understand how they were processing the results.

27:56

Can you tell me who you voted for in the primary on Tuesday?

28:01

Yes, I voted for Francesca Holland.

28:04

Francesca was my choice.

28:06

Ultimately, I ended up voting for David Crowley.

28:08

I voted for David Crowley.

28:10

I just thought more important than voting for exactly who I'd be more passionate about.

28:17

We need to get somebody in there that can win the race.

28:21

When I saw that Crowley had won with just over 3,000 votes shy, it was a huge sense of

28:27

relief for me, but a little bit of anxiety that we got that close.

28:31

I really appreciated the progressive views on affordable health care, universal childcare,

28:38

public schools, the minimum wage.

28:42

My two daughters are middle income and are struggling.

28:46

I don't see a way out of it.

28:48

My grandkids, they're having such hard time finding jobs.

28:51

It didn't used to be that way.

28:52

I'm just not for the establishment right now.

28:55

I feel like they just keep going along the same path.

28:59

I think we need to wipe this late clean, start over.

29:03

It's not working.

29:06

What would you say to somebody who looks at Holland's loss in Wisconsin?

29:10

And this is proof that the Democratic Socialist of America and that platform can't win

29:16

across the country.

29:18

Hello.

29:21

Good ideas have been coming from the progressive movement for years.

29:25

And sometimes they get more footing, sometimes they don't, they get to wait their time.

29:31

I think there are repairs we can make to our capitalist system without completely upending

29:37

everything.

29:38

When essentially your platform is just here and all down and rebuild, I don't think

29:42

we can start all down and rebuild.

29:44

I think that we need to prepare our democracy and progress and experiment that we're on.

29:51

We'll be right back.

29:54

Accenture is working together with the NFL to drive international growth by evaluating

29:59

markets, developing audience insights and creating new ways to engage fans and cities around

30:05

the world.

30:06

The NFL is building a global game.

30:08

An Accenture is helping make that vision a reality by striking the right balance between

30:13

what makes the NFL beloved in America and tapping into the passions and preferences that

30:18

make each market unique.

30:20

Accenture.

30:21

Official business and technology consulting partner of the NFL learn more at Accenture.com

30:26

slash NFL.

30:28

Hey, it's Ben Frueman, Editor-in-Chief of Wirecutter.

30:31

We put together the ultimate moving guide and I wanted to find out a few of our writers'

30:36

favorite tips.

30:37

When you're first moving into your home, make sure that you changed a bad easy-use mouth

30:40

detector.

30:41

By mattress bag, you can carry a mattress more easily because the handles are built in

30:45

and it's going to protect your mattress from the truck and the street.

30:48

Make sure you have towels on hand.

30:49

You don't want to end up taking a shower and using a dirty sock to dry off?

30:52

Yeah.

30:53

If you're getting ready to move, let Wirecutter help you make a plan at nytimes.com slash

30:58

moving.

31:01

Here's what else you need to know today.

31:04

The Trump administration plans to spend millions of dollars equipping immigration officers with

31:09

gloves that can deliver electric shocks on contact to induce compliance.

31:16

The gloves, which are sometimes referred to as stun gloves, take only a second to be

31:21

switched on by pressing a button and they're made by a Kentucky company called Compliant

31:26

Technologies.

31:29

The company says that the gloves emit a much lower voltage than a taser.

31:34

The Homeland Security Department described the gloves as a de-escalation device but didn't

31:39

answer questions about whether they might be used to apprehend people or in encounters

31:44

with protesters.

31:53

Today's episode was produced by Caitlin O'Keefe, Jack DeSodoro and Carlos Prieto.

31:59

It was edited by Rob Zipco and Paige Cowod with help from Lizzo Bayland and contains music

32:05

by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell and Marion Luzano.

32:09

Our theme music is by Wonderly.

32:11

This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

32:22

That's it for the Daily.

32:26

I'm Natalie Kittrowett.

32:28

See you tomorrow.

33:07

Learn more at Accenture.com-slash-NFL.