Philip M. Bailey

Schumer was pilloried, if you recall, last year by a lot of liberal advocates and left-leaning groups and the activist left saying he wasn't really up to the challenge and up to the task of challenging Donald Trump legislatively or even culturally keeping up with the times.

That's going to be an interesting race here.

If Plattner wins and beats Mills, that tells me, Dana, that across the board, Democrats are going to be leaning into more populist, even outsiders, right, who aren't necessarily affiliated or connected to Washington or connected to establishment Democrats.

And that's what I think.

we're going to see really in these primaries for Democrats across the board, maybe sort of more of a blue MAGA effort where you see sort of strong, hardcore sort of left-leaning advocates and activists running for office.

I would say that when you look at last year's races, Zohan Mandani, now the mayor of New York City, really epitomized that.

At the same time, I'll say this, at the same time,

The Democrats who also prevail in those statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey were more kitchen table moderates who focused on affordability, who weren't necessarily associated with the far left or left-leaning politics.

That's the thing that these primaries are really going to tell us.

I think that the theme of these primaries for the Democrats, this will always, I think, be the tension here.

There is a growing sense of Democrats that they are too loyal to their donor base, that they are just as bad as Republicans.

And that was something that was a theme both in the 2016 elections and 2024.

I think what Donald Trump has done with sort of very blitzing executive orders and executive action, I think what Donald Trump has done is put a lot of pressure on mainstream Democrats.

Why, when you get in there, you can't get these things done so quickly.

So there is, I think, going to be an energy from a more activist left perspective of, hey, we need to get in here and really change things fundamentally.

And that's really the issue of donors.

I think that the donor class in the Democratic Party will be criticized heavily by a lot of these candidates.

The real question, you know, as many of them question and call out, like James Tallarico questioning, calling out the billionaire class and the Epstein class, as I think Senator John Ossoff of Georgia called them in a recent speech.

That tension will remain with Democrats for a long period of time.

I don't think one primary season will wash that away.