Sen. Bernard Sanders is steadily making good on his long‑running mission to pull the Democratic Party to the far left.
The 84-year-old Vermont independent — and avowed democratic socialist — has blessed a slate of far-left candidates who have racked up primary wins by channeling a Sanders‑style populist message aimed at voters who feel the wealthy and politically powerful have rigged the system against them.
“People understand that the system is broken, it is rigged, it is corrupt — they want change,” Mr. Sanders said during a recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington. “I am happy to say we are having some real success. We are winning primaries all over the country, and I think we are going to win more in the near future.”
A day later, left-wing firebrand Graham Platner, a former Marine and oyster farmer whom Mr. Sanders endorsed in the fall, eviscerated Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s preferred pick, Gov. Janet Mills, in the Maine U.S. Senate primary after harnessing Mainers’ frustrations with the economy and “forever wars.”
Mr. Platner is now poised to face five‑term Republican Sen. Susan Collins in what is shaping up to be one of the marquee Senate races of the midterms.
Mr. Sanders’ influence isn’t confined to New England.
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He also notched a win in California’s 22nd Congressional District, where Randy Villegas, a school board trustee and auto shop owner, outperformed Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains — who had the backing of state and national Democratic leaders — to finish second in the top‑two primary. He’ll face Republican Rep. David Valadao in November in a race the Cook Political Report rates as a toss‑up.
Mr. Villegas, the son of Mexican immigrants, leaned heavily into his working‑class background in a district that is roughly 70% Latino, talking about growing up on Medicaid and free school lunches. Like Mr. Platner, he has criticized the party for losing touch with working‑class voters and failing to address the rising costs of child care, education, and health care.
Other Sanders-backed primary winners include Analilia Mejía in New Jersey’s 11th District; Bob Brooks, a firefighters’ union chief, in Pennsylvania’s competitive 7th District; and Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and city councilman, in Ohio’s 7th District.
His picks aren’t always winners. Candidates he backed in two Illinois House races and primaries in North Carolina and Utah came up short.
Mr. Sanders has also pushed into local and state races, where his record is mixed but his goal is the same.
“He is trying to build up a farm team,” said Matthew Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College. “He understands that tomorrow’s senators are today’s local elected officials and state legislative officials.”
Mr. Dickinson said Mr. Sanders “can’t be ignored” after his competitive 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton and second‑place finish in 2020. “He used to be viewed as someone’s crazy uncle who comes to the picnic, sits by himself and spouts off. Now he is sitting at the main dining table, and you have to listen to him.”
At the Press Club, Mr. Sanders said the Democratic Party is at a crossroads, arguing it has drifted from its working‑class roots and must return to the politics of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy.
“A lot of folks whose parents were Democrats are now Republicans,” he said. “They left not because they believe in tax breaks for billionaires or the authoritarianism of Trump, but because they did not see the Democrats provide a vision that would make their lives and their kids’ lives better.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are happy to have Mr. Sanders elevating candidates such as Mr. Platner and Abdul El‑Sayed, who is running in a tight three‑way Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Michigan.
“Bernie Sanders may have once represented the far‑left fringe of the Democratic Party, but now he represents the mainstream,” said Kiersten Pels, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “The Democrat Party has fully embraced extremism and socialism as its guiding ideology.”
Centrist groups, meanwhile, are sounding the alarm.
Kate deGruyter, senior director of communications for Third Way, warned that the Sanders model has its limits. “The urgent mission for Democrats right now is not turning blue seats bluer, but turning red seats blue, and on that score, it’s the moderate wing of the party that has a very significant track record of success,” she said, noting that New Democrat Coalition-backed candidates have flipped 50 House seats in the Trump era while Sanders-backed candidates have yet to flip a Republican-held seat.
“Democrats can’t run hard to the left because there are just fewer liberals than any other ideological group in the country,” Ms. deGruyter said. “We have to be able to win a super majority of moderate voters, and the danger is that the Sanders approach could hinder us in that vital effort.”
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