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Across the country, Democratic candidates with progressive and left-wing backers are distancing themselves from some of their own supporters’ ideas — and getting plenty of space to do it.
New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, for one, has separated himself from some proposals endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, despite his status as a member, and despite the group’s full-throated championing of his campaign.
Mamdani responded to attacks from the New York Post and rival Andrew Cuomo that referenced the 2021 DSA platform — which included an end to “all misdemeanor defenses” and “abolition of the carceral state” — by telling reporters that “my platform is not the same as national DSA.”
He got no blowback for doing so from the national or city chapters of the country’s largest democratic socialist organization, which condemned Cuomo for having no ideas “of his own.” Mamdani had previously walked back his support for “defunding” police; he now favors raising NYPD salaries, with the left offering no notable criticism.
“NYC-DSA’s priorities are enacting a rent freeze, universal childcare, fast and free buses, supporting workers, and electing leaders who will ally with us to make this reality,” NYC-DCA told Semafor in a statement. “That’s why NYC-DSA is prioritizing Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral bid to make New York City affordable.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who has not endorsed Mamdani, told Semafor that “I do not expect Zohran to abandon his convictions.” He chalked the shift up to Mamdani being “smart, strategic, and pragmatic enough to adapt to the realities of governing in New York City.”
Mamdani is “far more complex than the apocalyptic caricature his critics paint, and I have fewer fears about him than others do,” Torres said.
Further afield, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — who will campaign with Mamdani this weekend — ended the summer with rallies for Democrats running in swing seats, including Rebecca Cooke in southwest Wisconsin and Graham Platner in Maine.
But Cooke has not endorsed Sanders’ “Medicare for All” legislation, instead favoring a suite of incremental expansions of Medicare and Medicaid. “We may not be in the same place on Medicare for All, but we both agree people in my community and across America are hurting now,” she told Semafor in a statement. In an interview with Semafor, Platner said that he did not consider himself a “progressive,” though he had supported Sanders for president.
“I get a chuckle out of a lot of people in the media trying to pigeonhole me into this weird progressive bucket, especially considering I’m a small business owner and I have a gun safe that is, well, full of guns,” Platner said.
Platner also worked as a contractor for Constellis, a successor to the security company Blackwater, which has angered some online activists. That hasn’t kept the influential progressive in national politics from endorsing him.
“He was a security contractor for several months, but left after becoming completely disillusioned with America’s deeply failed foreign policy and endless wars,” a spokesperson for Platner told Semafor. “His experience overseas uniquely prepares him to fight back against the broken and corrupt foreign policy that consumes Washington.”
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Despite Mamdani’s triangulation, Democratic leaders have continued to eye him warily. He has not been endorsed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, even as the Trump administration discusses offering current Mayor Eric Adams a job that would help clear the field for Cuomo.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized party leaders’ reticence on Thursday.
“If an individual doesn’t want to support the party’s nominee now, it complicates their ability to ask voters to support any nominee later,” she told Spectrum News.
And she knows something about navigating the space between Democratic leaders and the DSA. The national DSA revoked its endorsement of her last year, citing Ocasio-Cortez’s lack of “commitment to the movement for Palestine and our collective socialist project.”
David’s view
Mamdani is still running on the most left-wing platform of any modern Democratic nominee for mayor of New York. Platner and Cooke are not particularly right-wing Democrats; Platner, for example, does support Medicare for All.
Still, progressives have engaged in notably less box-checking and litmus-testing than they did a few years ago, when climate activists were attacking Beto O’Rourke for a $5 trillion climate plan because it would not get the US to net-zero carbon emissions until 2050.
Mamdani’s situation is unique. He came from the DSA’s own ranks, which gives him credibility. Electing him would advance the organization’s goal beyond its wildest dreams.
And there is some disagreement among DSA members about the utility of the shoot-the-moon national priorities that get endorsed at the group’s conventions, if local affiliates don’t endorse them. (DSA endorsed Sanders for president, but Sanders didn’t endorse its platform.)
The larger context here is that all Democrats, socialist and otherwise, watched Donald Trump win two presidential elections while ignoring many conservative litmus tests.
Trump declined to back a national abortion ban, alienating some conservative anti-abortion activists. He said he had “nothing to do with” the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint — only to go on to hire some Project authors and implement their ideas.
All this has stirred some fresh thinking among Democrats about whether activists must demand that candidates agree with all of their positions, or whether victory demands more flexibility.
Room for Disagreement
Republicans have pounded every Sanders endorsee as a socialist and linked Cooke to her left-wing supporters, regardless of her alignment with their specific policy positions.
The National Republican Congressional Committee accused her of “putting criminal illegal immigrants over hardworking Wisconsinites,” citing Cooke’s past opposition to a voter ID ballot measure, after endorser Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., said that she considered noncitizens in Phoenix to be her constituents.
In New York, Cuomo has characterized Mamdani’s separation from national DSA as phony and convenient. “More flips than the soarin’ eagle at Coney Island,” he posted on X, after Mamdani detailed which national DSA proposals he disagrees with.
Notable
- In The New York Times, Eliza Shapiro wrote at more length about Mamdani “trying to grow past” some positions he endorsed before the campaign. “His supporters and those who have met with him behind closed doors describe him as open-minded and eager to find common ground. Some in the business community say they have been pleasantly surprised by his pragmatism.”
Burgess Everett contributed reporting.