More Leftists Should Run For Local Office Rather Than Congress

I remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 victory well. I sat at a table in my old Chicago apartment, beer in hand, toggling back and forth between Twitter and the New York Times’ NY-14 election results page. Then the first returns rolled in and showed a wide AOC lead that never faltered as the night went on. For progressives generally, the reaction was euphoric: “she did it, she beat the Democratic machine, if she can do it anyone can, hurrah hurrah, etc.” That night, anything felt possible for the Left.

In the 2020 election cycle that followed, the number of candidates trying to be AOC 2.0 skyrocketed. All were looking to punch above their weight against longtime incumbents, win with grassroots energy and limited funds, and go from random nobodies to members of the U.S. Congress. We had dozens and dozens of Left candidates, some of them open socialists, running everywhere.

The results have been less impressive than we might have hoped.

Shahid Buttar, Nancy Pelosi’s challenger, is entering round two of California’s jungle primary with 13 percent to her 74 percent, a margin that could easily mean a victory for Pelosi in November. Anthony Clark, backed by DSA, lost with 13 percent of the vote in his second try at the March IL-07 primary—ditto for Heidi Sloan, who unfortunately brought in 30 percent for her first shot at TX-25 on Super Tuesday.

One semi-official group of candidates emerged from this cycle as a perfect representation of the AOC-inspired “everyone run for Congress anywhere, you never know what will happen” mentality. Calling themselves The Rose Caucus, this informal slate of candidates ran as socialists in 21 congressional seats total. So far, none of these candidates has won. Some of their percentage vote shares: 23 percent, 22 percent, 13 percent, 8 percent, 4 percent, etc. The trend of defeats looks to continue.