Establishment Democrats crow after latest victories

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) is running for Senate in Florida.

Establishment Democrats had a good night Tuesday — results that could be interpreted as a sign their voters want to play it safe in the midterms as they battle to hold on to the House and Senate majorities.  

In New York, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) defeated a progressive challenger by more than 30 percentage points.  

“Tonight, mainstream won,” the chairman of the House Democrats campaign arm said in his victory speech. “Common sense won. Democrats want candidates who get results and bring home the win.”  

In another House primary, former Democratic impeachment counsel Dan Goldman, who came under criticism for not being liberal enough, outpaced several progressive challengers, including Rep. Mondaire Jones, whose congressional career he halted at one term.

Progressives did clinch a notable win when gun control activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D) beat out a slew of candidates for an open seat in Florida left vacant by Rep. Val Demings (D), who is running for Senate. 

But Democratic voters sided with the establishment favorite, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), over state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in November. 

Overall, Democratic voters on the season’s final major primary night did what Democratic voters have done throughout the year: They gave progressives glimmers of hope but as a whole put their faith behind the establishment.

Democratic strategist Jon Reinish said that’s because voters are weighing who has the best chance of winning a general election and the establishment candidates were able to build “broader electoral coalitions.”

“Especially given where Democrats need to win to either hold the majority, or at least keep losses, as low as possible. You know, it tends to be suburban districts, rural districts, ex-urban districts,” Reinish, a former aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), said. 

“And that is where a center or center left candidate who’s more unifying will do well,” he added.

Progressives have had some good wins over the spring and summer, most notably when Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) won the primary to run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, as well as Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes’ (D) victory in Wisconsin’s Senate primary.

But there have also been a number of disappointments, and establishment voices like Maloney’s were doing some crowing in the aftermath.  

In Ohio, former Bernie Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner lost her second House bid to Rep. Shontel Brown, who had establishment support. In a member-on-member primary for Michigan’s redrawn 11^th District, moderate Rep. Haley Stevens ousted progressive Rep. Andy Levin.

And in Texas, progressives were furious when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) helped propel nine-term Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), considered the last anti-abortion Democrat in the House, to a narrow win over progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in a closely watched race.

Cuellar’s supporters argued a progressive candidate couldn’t win his district and House leadership was eager to keep his seat in a lower chamber that Democrats control by only five seats and is widely expected to flip in November.

In another race, though, Pelosi endorsed Jones, a progressive incumbent.

To be sure, not all Democrats chalked Tuesday night up as an unmitigated win for centrists, or a statement about the Democratic landscape as a whole.

Angelo Greco, who was a senior campaign adviser to Turner’s congressional campaign, argued that Crist’s win in Florida was in part because progressives coalesced around his candidacy. Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau noted that Crist had already been a mainstay in Florida politics and had “a better mastery of the political Democratic machine.” 

In New York, Mollineau said Maloney had “access to funding, to establishment support, to democratic infrastructure.” And he said Goldman prevailed, at least in part, because several more progressive candidates split the vote.

Goldman, a Levi Strauss & Co. heir, had also poured millions of dollars into the race and had name recognition from his time as Democrats’ lead Trump impeachment counsel.

“Being known for something and having a financial advantage is always important in a crowded Democratic field,” Mollineau said, adding “and he had both.” 

Still, Mollineau said many Democrats’ perceptions of anti-establishment candidates do play a role.

“I feel as though, you know, those folks who have an anti-establishment, who have a ‘let’s go outside of the system, let’s tear this down’ mentality when it comes to their … ideas, their legislative ideas, so on and so forth, their worldview …  there are a growing number of people that are more … that are coming to believe that ideology, but it’s not a majority of the country, and it’s not a majority of Democrats,” he said. 

Natalia Salgado, director of federal affairs for the Working Families Party, pointed to eight candidates, among others, they endorsed — including Becca Balint for Vermont’s at-large congressional district and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who ousted President Biden-endorsed Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Oreg.) — as key wins in competitive races.

“The victories from our champions, even when dramatically outspent, are not just notable —  they are unprecedented. Because of those wins, the next Congress will be more responsible to working people than the last,” she said.

Still, progressives’ most prominent wins have come from Fetterman and Barnes, who Reinish says “run, in terms of their messaging, as very broadly uniting figures.” 

“They’re not bomb throwers. They’re not confrontational. They’re very uniting in the way that they message policy and how they conduct themselves and promote themselves as candidates.”