Progressives struggle for momentum after spate of losses

Progressives are facing a critical test of influence in Joe Biden’s Washington after another electoral blow further marked the party as moderate.

An Ohio congressional primary this week sent a centrist newcomer soaring back to Capitol Hill, leaving the left defeated again in one of its highest-profile contests. What followed was finger-pointing and venting by activists who say they are tired of being stampeded by the establishment. 

“Party leadership is firmly in the hands of the corporate Democrats,” said Marianne Williamson, a spiritual author and presidential candidate in 2020. “They’re vicious in their determination to keep progressives on the sidelines and out of power.”

The Cleveland contest between incumbent Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) and former state Sen. Nina Turner was one of progressives’ best chances to notch a win before the fall and build the momentum they acknowledge they need.

For months, activists were propping up Turner’s prospects of winning against Brown, who entered Congress after Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge joined the Biden administration.    

Turner sought to amplify what she had started last year through more organization, stumping and small-dollar fundraising in the state’s 11th Congressional District. She delivered signature sermons to rally crowds to her side.

But she was up against a lot. 

Brown out-fundraised her and was ahead in the polls. She got help from the outside, including from a prominent pro-Israel PAC that poured money into the congresswoman’s campaign in a move that progressives felt was intrusive.

“Yes, it’s hard to win when you’re massively outspent in nearly every election,” said Cenk Uygur, a progressive media personality and host of “The Young Turks.”

“The stronger the progressive is, the more they spend,” he said. “Nina must have scared the shit out of them.”

Late last week, Brown got the biggest boost of all: Biden’s blessing.

The congresswoman, Biden said in a statement, is “focused on solutions that will matter most to Middle Class and working families.” He congratulated her right after Election Day.

Progressives felt slighted. Not only did the president they helped elect wade into the primary, but he was not alone. Many saw it as a gut-punch when the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), which endorsed Turner’s first race, flipped to back Brown this time. The move was seen widely by fervent Turner supporters and allies on the left as a betrayal.

Caucus leaders maintained that they endorsed Brown as part of their routine backing of current members. Only one person in the so-called Squad, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), endorsed Turner. After conceding, Turner alleged that some progressive lawmakers were pushed to support Brown, but did not elaborate. 

Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who endorsed both Brown and Biden at pivotal moments, told The Hill he had been discussing Brown’s candidacy with lawmakers in the CPC in the days leading up to the election, attempting to build a coalition of support for her that spanned several caucuses. 

“Yes I have,” Clyburn said when asked if he was working with progressive House members on behalf of Brown. “I try to maintain an open mind and keep an open agenda.”

The proxy war was just the latest in what some Democrats feel is a party heading toward aimlessness less than six months from the midterm elections.

Other progressive face tough elections in the coming weeks where they’ll be tested yet again. In Texas, liberal attorney Jessica Cisneros is competing against Rep. Henry Cuellar, the most conservative Democrat in the House and the only one who is anti-abortion. And in Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner is taking on Rep. Kurt Schrader (D), who has Biden’s support.

Some Democratic strategists say liberals need to distance themselves from direct attacks on the existing nucleus of the party: the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“The progressives who win do so by not drawing such a clear with-us-or-against-us between themselves and the DNC,” said Max Burns, a Democratic operative. “It’s just not a popular message to voters, who see it as so much inside baseball irrelevant to their lives.” 

“Progressives tend to raise money by attacking the establishment, but that has diminishing returns if it looks like you’re spending most of your time attacking Democrats,” he said.

Beyond elections, some believe the left wing has failed to push their centrist colleagues in Congress hard enough to budge on many of their key policy priorities, like an anti-fossil fuel pledge, lower housing costs and raising the minimum wage.

“Representing the views of the majority of the American people and being squashed by the Democratic Party machine doesn’t mean you’re irrelevant, it just means you’re temporarily set back,” Williamson said.

Some activists and political observers place blame on lawmakers in the lower chamber, who have become larger in numbers during Biden’s first term but whom some deem inadequate in their approach to negotiating for bigger wins.

“Progressive leadership in the House has been an unmitigated disaster,” Uygur said. “They’ve rallied around conservative Democrats more than they’ve stuck together as progressives.”

Others blame the two biggest moderate forces in the Senate as obstacles to what would otherwise be more progressive movement. That has played out all year while progressives have seen Biden’s Build Back Better proposal stall, shrink and ultimately collapse after what many say were bad faith discussions with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.)

“What we’re witnessing from the establishment wing of the party is a repeated effort to frame progressives as naive and fringe,” said Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins.

“The problem with that is when you look at public polling, Americans overwhelmingly support progressive policies. When you remove party affiliation or names like AOC from these pieces of legislation, bills in support of universal health care, a $15 minimum wage and holding corporations accountable are wildly popular, which lets us know that they’ve got the right policies, the missing piece is messaging.”

“The Democratic Party is not the party of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema,” he continued. “It’s becoming more and more the party of a young progressive movement. Like anything else, that shift hasn’t happened overnight, but it is clearly happening.”