# Progressive Groups Are Getting More Selective In Targeting Incumbents. Is It Working?

- **URL:** https://www.genesisbrand.com/progressive-groups-are-getting-more-selective-in-targeting-incumbents-is-it-working/
- **Published:** 2020-08-21

In 2018, now-Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley shocked the political world by unseating 20-year incumbents in their Democratic primaries. And this year, the trend continued with progressives Marie Newman, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush winning their own upsets against long-serving congressmen. Thanks to an increasingly powerful progressive campaign apparatus, there’s no question that the left is now an established player in the Democratic Party. But is it strong enough to rival the political muscle of the party establishment? To find out, Genesis Brand has once again tracked hundreds of endorsements in every Senate, House and governor primary completed so far this year (through Aug. 18). We looked at the win-loss records of the endorsees of eight key Democratic influencers: progressive groups Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee; progressive figures Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders; and two arms of the national Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The result is the most complete picture yet of which wing of the party is doing better at the ballot box. And while the progressive upsets may have grabbed all the headlines, the numbers say the party establishment is still king of the hill. Of the 217 Democratic incumbents who ran in the primaries we analyzed, 214 won or advanced to the general election. Granted, that includes 19 incumbents — such as Reps. Ilhan Omar, Katie Porter, Rashida Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez herself — who were supported by one or more of the six progressive endorsers we’re tracking. But in the 17 primaries where progressives (candidates endorsed by at least one of these six entities) went up against an incumbent, the progressive-backed candidate lost 14 times. (Newman, Bowman and Bush were the only exceptions.) Most progressive challengers lost to incumbents How candidates endorsed by Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Sen. Sanders or Rep. Ocasio-Cortez have fared against incumbents in Democratic primaries for Senate, House and governor, through Aug. 18, 2020 Endorsed by … Candidate Race Indiv. J. Dems Our Rev. PCCC Sanders AOC Result Eva Putzova AZ-01 ✓ Lost Robert Emmons Jr. IL-01 ✓ Lost Marie Newman IL-03 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Rachel Ventura IL-11 ✓ Lost Jill Carter MD-07 ✓ Lost Cori Bush MO-01 ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Arati Kreibich NJ-05 ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Melanie D’Arrigo NY-03 ✓ Lost Adem Bunkeddeko NY-09 ✓ Lost Jamaal Bowman NY-16 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Morgan Harper OH-03 ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Albert Lee OR-03 ✓ Lost Mark Gamba OR-05 ✓ Lost Keeda Haynes TN-05 ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Jessica Cisneros TX-28 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Jason Call WA-02 ✓ Lost Rebecca Parson WA-06 ✓ Lost Some candidates were endorsed by both progressive and party establishment organizations. Sources: Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, PCCC, Twitter, Courage to Change PAC, Associated Press In primaries where there wasn’t an incumbent on the ballot, progressives did better: 22 wins (including Mondaire Jones in New York and Kara Eastman in Nebraska) to 10 losses (including Charles Booker in Kentucky). That’s a 69 percent win rate. Progressives are winning lots of open primaries How candidates endorsed by Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Sen. Sanders or Rep. Ocasio-Cortez have fared in Democratic primaries for Senate, House and governor where no incumbent was running, through Aug. 18, 2020 Endorsed by … Candidate Race Indiv. J. Dems Our Rev. PCCC Sanders AOC Result Christy Smith CA-25 ✓ Advanced Ammar Campa-Najjar CA-50 ✓ Advanced Georgette Gómez CA-53 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Advanced Andrew Romanoff CO Sen. ✓ Lost Jillian Freeland CO-05 ✓ Won Nabilah Islam GA-07 ✓ ✓ Lost Kai Kahele HI-02 ✓ Won J.D. Scholten IA-04 ✓ Won Paulette Jordan ID Sen. ✓ Won Jim Harper IN-01 ✓ Lost E. Thomasina Marsili IN-08 ✓ Won Charles Booker KY Sen. ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Hank Linderman KY-02 ✓ Won Betsy Sweet ME Sen. ✓ ✓ Lost Jon Hoadley MI-06 ✓ Won Tom Winter MT-AL ✓ Lost Kara Eastman NE-02 ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Ben Ray Luján NM Sen. ✓ Won Teresa Leger Fernandez NM-03 ✓ Won Samelys López NY-15 ✓ ✓ ✓ Lost Mondaire Jones NY-17 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Dana Balter NY-24 ✓ ✓ Won Daniel Kilgore OH-15 ✓ Lost Renee Hoyos TN-02 ✓ Won Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez TX Sen. ✓ Lost Mike Siegel TX-10 ✓ ✓ ✓ Won Candace Valenzuela TX-24 ✓ Won David Zuckerman VT gov. ✓ ✓ Won Beth Doglio WA-10 ✓ ✓ Advanced Amanda Stuck WI-08 ✓ Won Stephen Smith WV gov. ✓ ✓ Lost Paula Jean Swearengin WV Sen. ✓ Won In California and Washington primaries, the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Some candidates were endorsed by both progressive and party establishment organizations. Sources: Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, PCCC, Twitter, Courage to Change PAC, Associated Press However, the party establishment had even more success: 30 of the 31 candidates (97 percent) whom the DSCC and DCCC supported in incumbent-less primaries advanced to the general election. The only exception was Senate candidate James Mackler in Tennessee. Notably, Mackler was the first DSCC-endorsed candidate to lose a primary since 2010. The party decides How candidates supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have fared in Democratic primaries for Senate, House and governor where no incumbent was running, through Aug. 18, 2020 Candidate Race Result Al Gross AK Sen. Won Alyse Galvin AK-AL Won Mark Kelly AZ Sen. Won Hiral Tipirneni AZ-06 Won Christy Smith CA-25 Advanced John Hickenlooper CO Sen. Won Margaret Good FL-16 Won Theresa Greenfield IA Sen. Won Rita Hart IA-02 Won Betsy Dirksen Londrigan IL-13 Won Christina Hale IN-05 Won Barbara Bollier KS Sen. Won Michelle De La Isla KS-02 Won Amy McGrath KY Sen. Won Sara Gideon ME Sen. Won Hillary Scholten MI-03 Won Jon Hoadley MI-06 Won Dan Feehan MN-01 Won Jill Schupp MO-02 Won Mike Espy MS Sen. Won Kathleen Williams MT-AL Won Cal Cunningham NC Sen. Won Ben Ray Luján NM Sen. Won Jackie Gordon NY-02 Won Eugene DePasquale PA-10 Won Jaime Harrison SC Sen. Won James Mackler TN Sen. Lost MJ Hegar TX Sen. Won Wendy Davis TX-21 Won Gina Ortiz Jones TX-23 Won Carolyn Long WA-03 Advanced In California and Washington primaries, the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Some candidates were endorsed by both progressive and party establishment organizations. Sources: DSCC, DCCC, Associated Press These findings — that Democratic voters are generally voting for establishment candidates over insurgents — match what we saw in 2018. But that doesn’t mean progressive groups haven’t made progress in the last two years. They’ve just changed their strategy. Instead of endorsing dozens of candidates like they did in 2018, progressive groups are picking their battles more carefully. For instance, Justice Democrats has endorsed just three candidates in incumbent-less primaries this year, but two of them won. Endorsing fewer candidates is part of a longer-term approach as the group’s political apparatus has grown more sophisticated. As Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, told HuffPost, “We’ve been intentional about building infrastructure and an ecosystem that can take on decades worth of the establishment’s.” This means withholding support from candidates whose values may match the organization’s but who are running in districts where challengers face long odds or where unseating the incumbent in a primary could hand the seat to the GOP in the general. Certain progressive endorsers are also having more success this cycle. Sanders has a 75 percent win rate in incumbent-less primaries so far this cycle (6 for 8), up from 56 percent (5 for 9) around this point in 2018. And the PCCC has an 83 percent win rate (10 for 12), whereas two years ago it was 67 percent (10 for 15). This could reflect that these endorsers (and their ideas) enjoy more clout in 2020 than they did in 2018 — or it could just mean they’ve become savvier in whom they endorse. All told, the progressive group with the best win rate so far in primaries without an incumbent is Indivisible; they’ve endorsed 10 candidates in those races, and nine of them have advanced. Our Revolution has the worst win rate of the progressive endorsers we looked at, but they’ve also backed more candidates than the other groups; of the 14 candidates they endorsed, five have advanced to the general. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Courage for Change PAC has a win rate of 50 percent (4 for 8). Which progressive endorser has the best record? How candidates endorsed by six progressive figures and groups have fared in Democratic primaries for Senate, House and governor where no incumbent was running, through Aug. 18, 2020 num. endorsed endorsees who won percent Indivisible 10 9 90% PCCC 12 10 83 Sen. Sanders 8 6 75 Justice Dems 3 2 67 Rep. Ocasio-Cortez 8 4 50 Our Revolution 14 5 36 Some candidates were endorsed by both progressive and party establishment organizations. Sources: Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, PCCC, Twitter, Courage to Change PAC, Associated Press Of course, part of the difficulty here is that these groups are also endorsing candidates who are challenging incumbents, and incumbency, while not necessarily as potent as it once was, is still a pretty powerful force in American politics. However, some groups we analyzed were willing to take the risk. In fact, Justice Democrats endorsed more candidates running against incumbents (five) than they did candidates in primaries without incumbents (three), reflecting their status as one of the groups most urgently insisting upon drastic change in the halls of Congress. And, notably, their challengers won three of those races against incumbents — an extremely impressive win rate considering how rarely incumbents lose overall. Given Justice Democrats’ success this cycle, Democratic incumbents should probably be expecting more progressive challengers in 2022: After the 2018 midterms and the success of candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley, liberal groups made clear their intention to continue to target incumbent Democrats whose records hadn’t kept pace with their districts’ politics, especially in places where demographic changes favored progressives. Notably, this was Newman’s second challenge against incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s 3rd District — in 2018, Lipinski won by about 2,000 votes. So, long term, the strategy of challenging incumbents could pay dividends for the left.