The Democratic Socialists of America’s proposal to abolish the Senate isn’t being embraced by one of its most high-profile elected officials and some of the most progressive members of Congress.
“I’m a House member, we all hate the Senate,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the highest-ranking DSA member in Congress, joked with the Washington Examiner. “No, I mean listen, we’re working with the institutions that we have, this is a constitutional question.
“I don’t have the power or ability to do that, it is what it is, we’re working with what we’ve got,” she added. “These are kind of highfalutin questions that can only be resolved with a constitutional convention of everyday people.”
Ocasio-Cortez has been floated as a potential presidential candidate or primary challenger to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2028.
She is not alone in splitting with the most progressive end of the Democratic Party — another 2028 hopeful poured cold water on the area of the platform calling to abolish the Senate. “I’m not for abolishing the Senate, I’m for abolishing the filibuster,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner.
With the DSA growing in numbers, hitting 120,000 members nationwide earlier this month, the group is already playing an outsize role in the 2026 midterm elections. DSA-backed candidates have ousted several incumbent House Democrats in primaries this cycle and are looking to pad those numbers by scoring wins in the Michigan and Missouri primaries on Aug. 4. The DSA also backed Troy Jackson to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee for Maine.
Yet, while the DSA is surging, the group is also becoming more ambitious. Earlier this month, it released a national platform that includes priorities some factions of the Democratic Party have pushed for years, such as “Medicare for All,” defunding the police, and making unions more powerful. However, it also includes more radical provisions such as allowing noncitizens to vote, abolishing border enforcement, adopting a new constitution, and scrapping the Senate.
“Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy,” the DSA platform reads. “Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.”
Not all of those proposals are garnering support from the progressive lawmakers most likely to be sympathetic to the DSA, as evidenced by the response to abolishing the Senate.
“Vermonters will never be in support of that,” Rep. Rebecca Balint (D-VT) told the Washington Examiner. “If we abolish the Senate, then we lose some of our voice for rural America, because right now I am the only member from Vermont, so if we abolish the Senate, what is their plan? Are you going to have more proportional representation? So we go from having three voices in Congress to one, I would never support that as a small state.”
Balint is a staunch progressive and the first woman and lesbian to be elected to Congress from Vermont’s at-large congressional district. Both of her immediate predecessors in the House, independent Bernie Sanders and Democrat Peter Welch, now sit in the upper chamber.
Democrats say the opposition from would-be allies shows that the DSA’s platform is not a realistic framework for governing.
“There will always be a gap between activist wish lists and the realities of governing,” one Democratic campaign operative told the Washington Examiner. “Some of the DSA’s message on affordability is understandably resonating because voters are frustrated with the Republican trifecta and the status quo of politics more broadly.”
“But proposals like abolishing the Senate aren’t serious governing agendas — they’re ridiculous activist slogans,” the operative said. “Even lawmakers like AOC, who overlap on some progressive goals, know the difference between bold messaging and the day-to-day of actually delivering for constituents.”
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The operative added that if DSA candidates keep winning, they will have to face the reality of working through the legislative process and accepting checks and balances.
“The real test will come once they’re in office, and I have a hard time believing these far-left warriors would be willing to derail Democratic priorities once they’re the ones expected to deliver results,” the operative continued. “Time will tell.”