Democratic socialists poised to expand House ranks after midterm elections

Several newcomers unseated longtime House incumbents in Democratic primaries

Despite a midterm election season filled with talk about socialism, only a handful of candidates running for Congress actually align with the far-left wing of the Democratic Party or identify with the Democratic Socialists of America, according to reporting by The Associated Press. Most come from a few Democratic strongholds, and several toppled seasoned incumbents in hard-fought primary campaigns this year. They are expected to win their Nov. 3 elections and would join two democratic socialists already serving in the House.

The group includes Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez of New York, Melat Kiros of Colorado, Donavan McKinney of Michigan and Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, a mix of first-time candidates and state lawmakers who ran on working-class themes.

Republicans have raised alarm bells over socialism throughout the campaign, but the warning may not carry the force it once did, particularly among Democratic voters, according to the AP’s analysis. The candidates would not be the first democratic socialists on the national scene: the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the enduring influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont all point to shifting ideas in American politics, the news service reported.

Regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans hold the House majority, the progressive newcomers would bring new energy to the Democratic Party and potential challenges for its leadership during the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term, the AP reported.

Chevalier, a community organizer and field staffer for Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, won an upset victory over long-serving Rep. Adriano Espaillat in upper Manhattan and the Bronx. A newcomer to politics who formally became a democratic socialist last year, she centered her campaign on the argument that government, and her opponent, had abandoned the working class, and that Congress needs fresh faces to challenge the status quo.

“I think folks are really tired of politics that seems more beholden to donors,” Chevalier told The Associated Press hours before winning her primary. She once helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and made opposition to Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza the cornerstone of her campaign. Chevalier was arrested last month during a protest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan.

In Colorado, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old lawyer turned doctoral student, defeated 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in the Denver-area seat as a first-time candidate. An immigrant from Ethiopia whose family relocated to Colorado after she was born, Kiros earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Washington College in Maryland and a law degree from the University of Notre Dame, and worked as an attorney in New York City before running for Congress as a democratic socialist.

Speaking beneath a sign reading “Power to the People,” Kiros pledged to take the fight to “Donald Trump and the oligarchy,” abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pass Medicare for All and end the “genocide in Palestine.” “This is a movement,” Kiros said. “We are just getting started.”

In Michigan, 34-year-old state lawmaker Donavan McKinney overcame a major spending disadvantage to unseat Rep. Shri Thanedar in a Detroit-area district. McKinney, who describes himself as a democratic socialist and was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, ran a grassroots campaign focused on reforming utility costs, backing Medicare for All and getting money out of politics. “No longer can our party continue to serve two masters,” McKinney said at an event in August. “It’s up to us to push our party to either fight for the working people, or continue to fight for the corporate oligarchs.”

In Pennsylvania, Chris Rabb won a four-way primary in a heavily Democratic Philadelphia district after 10 years in the state House, where the AP describes him as bringing a provocative style of politics as one of the chamber’s most progressive and outspoken members. Rabb, who is Ivy League-educated, has said he joined the Philadelphia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in 2026 and traces his involvement to a constellation of progressive groups and causes. He campaigned on the corrosive role of money in politics. “I believe that the Democratic Party listens more to people who fund it than the people who actually come out to vote,” Rabb said. “And as a result, there’s this huge disconnect between the people closest to the pain and the people closest to the purse.”

Rabb’s platform included abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a moratorium on data centers and a Medicare for All health care subsidy. He also backed government-run grocery stores to wipe out “food deserts” and an expansion of federal minimum wage law that would eliminate the lower tipped minimum wage and cover independent contractors such as gig workers.

In New York, state lawmaker Claire Valdez, part of a slate of Mamdani-backed progressives on this year’s ballot, defeated the handpicked successor of retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez in the Democratic primary for a sprawling, gentrified district spanning Brooklyn and Queens, and is expected to advance easily to Congress this fall in the heavily Democratic seat. A member of the New York City chapter of the DSA since 2019, Valdez cast herself as a booster of Mamdani’s agenda in Washington and campaigned on affordability and generational change, promising to champion the working class and bring the fight to Trump. She has said she hopes to prove the excitement around Mamdani’s election was not a flash in the pan but the signal of a growing populist shift in the Democratic Party. “Right now there’s really mass dissatisfaction with the way the party leadership has been operating and not standing up strongly enough to Trump,” Valdez told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Several other candidates align with the party’s left wing but are not necessarily DSA members, and some democratic socialist candidates remain locked in tight contests. Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran and medical doctor running in a safe Democratic district in New Jersey, has said he is not a DSA member but would ally himself with supporters of getting corporate money out of politics. Candidates on the left are “getting attacked again by fearmongering, which is really always the last resort when you have nothing to talk about,” Hamawy said in an interview with journalist Chris Hedges. In California, Angela Gonzales-Torres, a democratic socialist, is running to unseat Rep. Jimmy Gomez in a Los Angeles district. In Michigan, climate activist and former DSA member William Lawrence is looking to defeat Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in one of the nation’s most competitive seats.

Chevalier, McKinney and Rabb each argued that the Democratic Party listens to donors and corporate interests ahead of the people who vote for it. Kiros pledged to take the fight to “Donald Trump and the oligarchy,” while Valdez pointed to dissatisfaction with a leadership she described as not standing up strongly enough to Trump. Their arrivals would give those arguments a larger platform in Congress regardless of which party holds the majority, in the final two years of Trump’s term.