Days before he won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Michigan, insurgent newcomer Abdul El-Sayed was asked whether he was concerned about being labeled a “socialist”.
“I’d rather think of myself as a capitalist who has actually read about capitalism,” El-Sayed told CBS News anchor Ed O’Keefe. “I’m not a socialist.”
While El-Sayed might take pains to distance himself from the label in the swing state of Michigan, O’Keefe noted that the candidate has been linked to the Democratic Socialists of America, the ascendant leftist group whose meteoric rise has captured the enthusiasm of voters desperate for bold change and whose recent wins have stoked the anxieties of both conservatives and the party’s establishment.
“I’m not DSA,” El-Sayed stressed in the interview, though he made clear there is room for the DSA in the “big tent” he said he’s seeking to build.
El-Sayed is just one of a number of progressive candidates and elected officials across the country who are navigating their relationship and differences with DSA, which has come under increasing pressure as its candidates have won one race after the other in Democratic primaries mostly in blue states.
But as other progressive candidates to the left of the Democratic establishment have mounted bids for office, there has at times been confusion about who is a “DSA candidate” – a confusion some Republicans have been eager to exploit.
Some, like El-Sayed, espouse many of the group’s political priorities – fighting fascism, instating universal healthcare, getting money out of politics and boosting labor rights, to name a few – but are not members, nor have they been endorsed by the DSA. Others, like New York’s Claire Valdez, have been organizing with the group for years. Then there are those like Colorado’s Melat Kiros and Pennsylvania’s Chris Rabb who have long identified as socialists but only recently joined the organization. (All three are DSA-endorsed.)
Brad Lander was once a member but left the group over its response to the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the national figure most often associated with DSA, rejoined the New York City chapter last month after letting her membership lapse for seven years, as speculation mounts about her intention to run for president.
But DSA membership doesn’t guarantee endorsement, and intense debates have roiled the organization in recent months about which candidates to endorse and how to best ride the current momentum. In Los Angeles, for example, the local DSA chapter voted to endorse mayoral candidate Nithya Raman this week after weeks of discussions on whether she was too centrist to earn their backing.
A decade into Trumpism and Democrats’ failure to stop it, and buoyed by the popularity of longtime member Zohran Mamdani, the DSA has helped popularize positions once viewed as radical – from taxing the rich to ending support for Israel.
The DSA has become a “shorthand for this rebellion against Democratic party leadership”, said Peter Sterne, an editor at City & State New York and a former DSA member who has extensively covered the group.
In recent months, the group has seen its membership soar to 120,000, its leaders are getting prime time on cable news and a recent poll found that one-third of Democrats now openly identify as “ socialist ”, a term not long ago viewed as a slur.
The backlash has been swift. After DSA candidates won nine out of 10 races in which the group had fielded candidates in New York City in June, party establishment figures issued a string of hostile statements . Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, announced a $15m effort to go to “ war ” against them. DSA leaders and members have become tabloid fodder . And this week, House Republicans – joined by eight Democrats – adopted a resolution condemning “socialism” and specifically naming the DSA.
The organization’s critics point to some of its more radical stances, from eliminating the Senate to abolishing borders and defunding the police, as a sign of its unseriousness. But many DSA members view those as aspirational and consistent with the group’s fundamental values, while calling for a more realistic approach .
Even some more moderate Democrats recognize the DSA’s message is resonating because the rest of the party has failed to present a satisfying vision of its own.
“You can’t beat something with nothing,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “The more moderate wing of the Democratic party is going to have to raise its game substantially.”
The DSA’s popularity and campaigning capacity on the one hand, and the animosity from more conservative corners on the other, has left some candidates, particularly in swing states, navigating a balancing act.
In Florida, Angie Nixon, who recently won the Democratic Senate primary in one of the biggest upsets of the primary season, joined the DSA only in June but has not been endorsed by the group. When asked whether she identified as a democratic socialist, she equivocated.
“I don’t agree with everything that they agree with, but they’re fighting hard to ensure we have access to universal healthcare, access to free college and fully funded public schools,” she said in an interview with the Guardian . “I’ve always been a lifelong Democrat but I’m more of [a] social democrat who believes in strong safety nets.”
Some of the most popular politicians associated with the DSA have broken with the group on some issues. The group has for months been debating how to respond to a possible presidential run by Ocasio-Cortez. Some factions, and particularly many NYC-DSA members, have openly encouraged it , while others are suspicious of what they view as her willingness to compromise on DSA priorities. Mamdani has also broken with the group over policing .
Ultimately, the decision will be made democratically – DSA members report often excruciatingly deliberative processes and stress that the “democratic” element of the group’s identity is just as fundamental as its socialist one.
Endorsements, Sterne noted, can power a campaign with an “army” of canvassers and phone bank volunteers – DSA’s New York City chapter says that its 50,000 volunteers knocked on doors 1.6m times in support of Mamdani’s candidacy.
But the “DSA doesn’t just want to help get people into office and then let them do whatever they want”, he added, noting that there was some concern within the organization that candidates may opportunistically hitch their wagon to the group but not work with it after getting elected.
The tension between the pragmatists and the purists, he argued, is healthy, and a sign of the organization’s strength.
“More people are joining,” he said. “More people are identifying as socialists, which was once seen as a taboo term.”
“I’d rather think of myself as a capitalist who has actually read about capitalism,” El-Sayed told CBS News anchor Ed O’Keefe. “I’m not a socialist.”
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Alice Speri. Published 5 Sept 2026, 09:00 am.
