Why the Democratic Party Fears Its Best Candidates

Protecting the status quo when voters are desperate for change is not a good strategy.

There may be no more fundamental fact about electoral politics in this era than this: Voters love outsiders challenging the status quo, and almost always want to vote for change. The last national election in America that wasn’t about which party or candidate better represented change was in 2012.

So naturally, the Democratic Party in its wisdom is trying to do everything it can to thwart the most interesting candidates it has. This is not, however, an expression of pure evil. It may be misguided and craven, but it’s possible to understand why they do what they do, even when they’re wrong, which is why I want to break it down.

My discussion here is prompted by a revealing article in NBC News today, which is properly illustrated with a big ‘ol picture of Chuck Schumer, who has become the symbol of all that is hidebound, feckless, and unappealing about the party:

Here’s how the article starts:

When Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow decided in February that she wanted to run for an open U.S. Senate seat, she conveyed her intentions to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But the committee asked her to hold off, according to three sources familiar with the conversations.

In that call and subsequent ones, some of which took place at the staff level, DSCC officials didn’t explicitly ask her not to run, but “they were slow-walking,” said one source who discussed the private conversations on condition of anonymity. “It was, ‘Can you wait a little longer, can you wait?’”

In early April, McMorrow defied their wishes and launched her campaign, inveighing against “the same old crap in Washington” and highlighting polls that showed the Democratic Party’s approval rating at an all-time low.

If you’re at all familiar with McMorrow, this should strike you as absolutely bonkers. She is exactly what the party needs right now: young, smart, charismatic, adept at social media, everything you’d want in a candidate. Why on earth wouldn’t the party be falling all over themselves to encourage her to run for higher office rather than doing the opposite?

The most important reason (and I say this without inside knowledge; it’s just what I consider a reasonable surmise) is Rep. Haley Stevens, one of the other candidates in the race. While the party hasn’t officially endorsed her, she’s just the kind of candidate the folks in Washington love. She has proven she can win, even if her district is a reasonably safe one (she’s in her fourth term in the House). Ideologically, she’s smack dab in the middle of the party. She isn’t a shit-stirrer. She may not make voters excited, but she doesn’t make them angry, either.

So the impulse of the party is to do what it can to clear the field for her, instead of doing the smart thing, which is to just encourage anyone who wants to run to do so, and see how the primary plays out.

Nevertheless, potential insurgent candidates, especially first-time candidates, often have this experience: They start to explore the possibility of running, then the national party gets wind of it and sends them an unambiguous message: Don’t. You’ll fail, you’ll embarrass yourself, we won’t support you, we already have a preferred candidate in this race.

Then the candidate has to make a decision: Should I go ahead with this knowing that my own party is going to fight me? That the experienced staffers won’t want to work for me, that it’ll be hard to raise money, that everything about it will be harder than it could be? A lot of them decide it just isn’t worth it. Amanda Litman of Run for Something explains how this plays out, and why it’s so wrongheaded. Even from a clear-eyed view of the party’s own self-interest, primaries aren’t a dangerous enterprise in which the “wrong” candidate with little chance of winning a general election could wind up prevailing, which is what they fear. Even if that happens from time to time, usually, primaries show you who the best candidates are! And if Stevens is really the best candidate, she’ll win. If not, she won’t. (There’s also another major candidate in the race, Abdul El-Sayed, who is the most progressive of the three.)

What the party wants

The party establishment — which includes the DSCC and its House counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; a whole universe of consultants and operatives who surround them; incumbent members of Congress; and party officials at the federal, state, and local level — have a list of criteria they look for in candidates. Do you have experience running for office? Do you have a network of rich friends and family who can quickly contribute the money to get your campaign up and running, or even better, are you rich enough to put a million or two of your own money into the campaign? Do you have a biography amenable to a reassuring bulleted list on the back of a brochure (“I proudly served on the board of my local Boys & Girls Club…”)?

On their face, those questions are reasonable. There are a thousand inexperienced candidates who ran for office without the necessary tools, and went nowhere; all else being equal, it’s better to know what you’re doing. It’s also not trivial that these factors can all be quantified (roughly speaking), which allows the party folks in DC to quickly sort what they consider the “good” candidates from those who are something else.

There are times when that just means taking a bird in the hand; for instance, Schumer is reportedly desperate for Maine Gov. Janet Mills to enter the Senate race against Susan Collins, since Mills is a popular governor who has won two statewide races. Is she a safer bet to beat Collins than viral sensation Graham Platner, who has never run for anything? Maybe, but Platner is a compelling candidate and Mills has one big strike against her: she’s 77 and would be 85 at the end of her Senate term. The best solution is to let them run against each other (and the other couple of candidates in the race) and see who’s got the juice.

But that’s not the whole story. Almost inevitably, the party’s preference for safe choices turns into a spoils system that rewards insiders and discourages innovation. In 2019, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the party the year before by defeating one of its highest-ranking members, the DCCC created a “blacklist” barring vendors that worked for candidates who challenged Democratic incumbents in primaries from getting DCCC business. The group eliminated the policy two years later, but the fact that it happened in the first place shows how afraid the party can be of anything that challenges the status quo, even to the point of undermining its most charismatic and capable candidates.

We can also see this playing out in New York, where Schumer and Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries still haven’t endorsed Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor. Likewise, Kamala Harris kind of did, but couldn’t bring herself to say his name (“I support the Democrat in the race, sure”). Why are they doing this ridiculous drawn-out will-they-or-won’t-they performance, rather than just saying “Of course I support him; let’s make the city better”?

Long story short, it’s because they’re cowards. The fact that Mamdani is so charismatic, and is such a social media ninja, actually scares them. He’s a living representation of the future of politics, a future in which they don’t have a place. They stay up at night thinking “But what if some reporter asks me to take responsibility for something Mamdani tweeted in 2017, and I’m not sure how to answer? That would be horrible!” That kind of thinking, and the terrified cautiousness it produces, is no small part of why so many voters think Democrats are weak. Because they are.

The truth is, it doesn’t make any difference to Mamdani’s own race whether Chuck Schumer endorses him. In fact, it might be better if he doesn’t, because a key part of Mamdani’s brand is that he represents change, and nothing says “change” less than Chuck Schumer.

Finally, here’s another part of the NBC News article:

Another Democratic strategist advising Senate candidates said the “old” playbook of party leaders effectively controlling primaries doesn’t work in the context of the modern “attention economy,” while predicting that the 2026 primaries will boil down to three questions: “Are you cool? Can you fight? Can you inspire people?”

A national poll taken this month by The Associated Press found that the Democratic Party had a 34% favorable rating, and 53% unfavorable. The poll found that just 69% of Democrats saw their party favorably, while 27% registered an unfavorable view. Just 19% of independents said they see the party favorably. (The GOP had a 78% favorable rating among Republicans, with 17% holding unfavorable views of their own party.)

The party’s leadership is definitely not cool, it only occasionally fights, and it doesn’t inspire anyone. Which is why it should be looking wherever it can for candidates who do. Unfortunately, the party more often sees the best candidates as a threat and not an opportunity.

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