Democratic Socialists' surge ignites internal party battle over Democrats' midterm strategy

Melat Kiros, 29, was fired from her job as a corporate lawyer in 2023 after refusing to delete an open letter criticizing her law firm's support for Israel following the Hamas attacks. She had condemned antisemitism while arguing that opposition to Israeli government policy should not be conflated with hatred of Jewish people. That act of defiance has become central to her political identity as she runs for Congress in Denver as a Democratic Socialist—and she is on track to become the first Gen Z woman elected to the House.

Kiros won her primary by defeating an incumbent who had held the seat for nearly three decades. She is one of several candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization whose platform includes higher taxes on the wealthy, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a total arms embargo on Israel. The DSA has found unexpected momentum in recent primary races, and a CBS-YouGov poll found that 71 percent of voters who identified as liberal held favorable views of socialism. But that success has ignited a fierce battle within the Democratic Party itself over who the party is and what it should stand for.

Kiros's campaign centers on what she calls broken systems that both major parties have failed to fix. She wants dramatic cuts to defense spending redirected toward universal healthcare, childcare, and public housing—programs she notes are already standard in peer nations. On Gaza, she is direct: American tax dollars are funding the bombardment, and the United States has the power to stop it by ending military aid. "This notion that what we're calling for is extreme is detached from reality," she said in an interview, pointing to the social programs already established across the developed world.

The centrist wing of the Democratic Party has mobilized in response. Third Way, a moderate Democratic group, has launched a $21 million campaign to discredit democratic socialism within the party. Jim Kessler, a co-founder of Third Way and former aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, argues that the math of American politics demands a different approach. The country is center-right, he says, with more conservatives than liberals. That means Democrats must win a supermajority of moderates to gain power—a calculation Republicans do not face. Most DSA-backed candidates who won their primaries represent safe Democratic seats, while moderate candidates have found success in swing districts where independent and disaffected Republican voters hold sway. Kessler contends that progressive solutions often lack substance. "There needs to be flesh on the bones," he said, "and they don't want to put the flesh on the bones because it opens them up to criticism."

But Kiros and her supporters see the stakes differently. She argues that the country faces a moment of genuine crisis—economic, political, and democratic—that demands bold action rather than incremental reform. "We have no choice but to fight for bold solutions, or else this democracy will not survive," she said. Craig Skinner, a volunteer with Denver's DSA chapter, joined the movement after watching Zohran Mamdani win the New York City mayoral election. He has watched the local membership nearly double since Kiros's campaign began. When he knocks on doors, he said, people respond to the message that the wealthy and corporations are undertaxed while working people struggle to afford healthcare and housing. "It's hard to say that's radical," Skinner said.

Republican President Donald Trump has seized on the rise of the progressive left as a midterm weapon. At the Republican convention earlier this month, he called Democratic Socialists communists and warned that if they win, "the greatest legislative body in history will, for the first time ever, be controlled by a communist caucus." Other Republicans are using similar language to paint the DSA as a threat to the economy and the nation itself. The strategy reflects Republican anxiety about the midterms, where they risk losing control of both the House and Senate. For now, the Democratic Party is split between two visions of how to win: one that bets on moderates in a center-right nation, and one that bets on mobilizing voters hungry for systemic change. Kiros and candidates like her will test which calculation holds in November.