Progressives and moderates contest credit for Democrats' blue wave as senior leaders call for unity

Progressive Democrats have declared that the party's significant wins in the US midterm elections are as much a repudiation of their own party's political establishment as of Donald Trump's presidency.

After a string of left-wing candidates scored stunning victories from Texas to Michigan, senior Democratic leaders have stressed that the party's new representatives in Washington will be united in their focus on reducing costs for Americans and ending corruption under Trump. Leading progressive groups, however, took a different tone and called on the party to take radical action.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a progressive political action group, said the result was not an endorsement of a mealy-mouthed corporate agenda that practices incrementalism, but an endorsement of a bold and visionary agenda.

An astonishing blue wave swept across the US in Tuesday's midterm elections as Democrats scored historic wins in previously Republican strongholds, enabling the party to retake the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Democratic share of the popular vote for House races was the largest of any election since 1976, according to analysis by the New York Times.

Progressives are attempting to own the victory. While still in the minority, they argue that their ideas were key to flipping Republican seats, and that such wins were a decade in the making.

Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, an organisation that led an effort to draft Bernie Sanders into the 2016 presidential election, said the progressive senator articulated a real set of policy directions during that campaign. Minsky said they are now a mature political movement with an increasing number of excellent leaders around the country, and that they basically won the battle of the primary season inside the party.

The Democratic Socialists of America said democratic socialists are leading the conversation and helping to shift public opinion in dramatic ways on key issues such as abolishing ICE and arms embargoes against Israel, according to its national co-chair Ashik Siddique. He said even candidates who are not in the DSA, mentioning Abdul El-Sayed among others, shaped their campaigns around the issues and messaging the DSA is championing.

Progressives have been particularly emboldened by the victory of El-Sayed in Michigan, a battleground state. El-Sayed beat Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate, in the party's bitter primary. Stevens later endorsed El-Sayed's Republican opponent Mike Rogers in the final days of the campaign. Andrabi argued that Stevens's position at the end of the campaign embodies where corporate Democrats are at.

Democrats from across the party won election in key races, however, and moderates are also taking a victory lap. Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Josh Turek in Iowa staged extraordinary upsets to flip their respective Senate seats. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is likely to become the first Black speaker of the House, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is poised to lead the Senate.

Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Schumer argued that all Democrats, whether progressive or more moderate, spent months campaigning on the same issues, from improving affordability to tackling corruption. He said it was all the same message, and that they will be united as a caucus focusing on those issues.

Many progressives have long been dissatisfied with the party's leadership. Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, leaders of the Indivisible movement that started during Trump's first term, have called on senators to oppose Schumer's ascension to Senate majority leader. Other progressives have been more circumspect in their demands.

Minsky said the argument will take place with a great degree of civility, and that there will be solidarity for accountability. Ravi Mangla, national press secretary for the Working Families Party, said voters gave Democrats a mandate to pursue accountability for Trump and the corruption in his administration, as well as a mandate to address the cost-of-living crisis.

With progressives and moderates likely to square off in the run-up to the 2028 presidential primaries, the party's left flank is feeling confident, with potential candidates including congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and congressman Ro Khanna of California among those cited as possible contenders.