IT’S THE YEAR OF THE DSA IN DEMOCRATIC POLITICS. Democratic Socialists of America candidates have been on a roll lately, defeating established Democratic incumbents or winning open seats in New York, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. There was talk of the DSA picking off another Democratic incumbent in Tuesday’s primary in Arizona. This time, it didn’t happen. Indeed, the DSA candidate did quite a bit worse than the socialist party expected.
But hold the DSA-has-peaked stories. Shortly after voting ended in Arizona, there came a new edition of the respected Granite State Poll in New Hampshire. Looking at the 2028 Democratic presidential race, it found Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a DSA member, leading a large field of candidates. The DSA got more good news when a new Fox News national poll found that 59% of Democrats have a favorable impression of the socialist party.
Start with the Arizona race. It was in the state’s 4th District, in the suburbs of Phoenix. Kamala Harris won the district with 53% in 2024, and Joe Biden won with 54% in 2020. The Democratic incumbent is Greg Stanton, who has been elected twice in the district and twice before that when the district had different boundaries. He faced a DSA challenger, Kai Newkirk, who is a left-wing activist, community organizer, professional protester, and meditation teacher. Newkirk’s greatest achievement came in 2014, when he attended a public session of the Supreme Court and stood up to make a brief speech in opposition to the Citizens United decision. He had an associate make a video of the moment and managed to smuggle it out — the first-ever video inside a Supreme Court session.
Despite such notoriety, Newkirk seemed to offer little challenge to Stanton. But left-wing news outlets tried to create the appearance of a real contest. The American Prospect reported that an internal Newkirk campaign poll showed Stanton leading with 46% to Newkirk’s 38%, but Newkirk actually leading among later voters. PBS in Arizona, which goes by the name Cronkite News, reported that the race was virtually even. Axios listed the race as one in which progressives, buoyed by those victories in New York and Colorado, hoped “to knock off as many as half a dozen more Democratic incumbents this cycle.”
The test came Tuesday, and it wasn’t close. Stanton trounced Newkirk, 62.3% to 37.7%. In the wake of the Graham Platner debacle in Maine, there was some late, and very vague, talk about whether Newkirk had any improprieties in his past, but the bottom line was, the race was never close. Arizona — or at least a district in the Phoenix suburbs — would not be another triumph for DSA.
No matter. Not long after election night, the Granite State Poll showed Ocasio-Cortez atop a field of more than a dozen possible Democratic candidates for president in the early-voting state of New Hampshire. AOC had 22% — up from 15% in February — which put her barely in front of Pete Buttigieg, with 21%, and farther in front of Mark Kelly, with 9%, and Gavin Newsom, with 8%. (Newsom’s decline in New Hampshire, from 15% in February to 8% today, is one of the notable stories of the Democratic race so far.)
Bernie Sanders was also on the list, with 6% support. What’s striking about that is that Sanders is, of course, the leader of the socialist movement that gave birth to AOC and other socialist leaders. But he will also be 87 years old in 2028, and there is no way he’s going to be the Democratic nominee. So it probably makes sense to add his 6% to that of AOC, and say that 28%, more than one quarter, of New Hampshire Democrats now support a socialist candidate for president.
Of course, in 2028 New Hampshire will probably not play the storied role it has played in primary battles of the past. The problem is that New Hampshire, which is 91% white, does not even faintly resemble the Democratic electorate as a whole. Look for states with more black and Hispanic Democrats, like South Carolina and Nevada, to go before New Hampshire in 2028.
Speaking of race, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, one of the most senior Democrats in the House, a former member of leadership, and an African American, recently commented on a rally held in Michigan by Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed, who is not a member of DSA but can accurately be described as progressive and DSA-adjacent. “I saw a picture that concerned me from the rally,” Clyburn said. “I didn’t see a single person that looks like me. That tells me all I need to know.”
Clyburn’s comments would seem to fit into the image of the DSA as a bunch of highly-educated white leftists. But some information to complicate that stereotype is deep inside the crosstabs of the new Fox News poll. The question was “Please tell me whether you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Socialists of America.” Fifty-nine percent of Democrats said yes — an almost amazingly high number. (For Republicans, the number was 6%.)
Overall, the poll further found that 26% of white respondents had a favorable opinion of the DSA. But 46% of nonwhite respondents had a favorable impression, as did 35% of Hispanics. So maybe Clyburn didn’t see anyone who looked like him in a photo from the el Sayed rally, but there appear to be plenty of nonwhite voters who like DSA.
In any event, after one (small) setback in the Arizona primary, this has been another strong week for the DSA. One of its members is leading the Democratic race in New Hampshire, while a new poll shows solid support for the party among Democrats nationwide. Sure it’s early, but at this moment, 2026 is still the year of the DSA in Democratic politics.