Three (3!) NY DSA candidates have Our Failed Political Press ™ wringing their hands about the incoming commie tide! Stalin is at our gates, better hide the women-folk and arm the children!

Let’s just get this over with: Tiger Beat on the Potomac (Thanks Charlie!), er, Politico is owned by a very conservative German media empire. And their email thingie Monday morning ledes with…

ROCKY ROAD: In case you hadn’t noticed, Democratic insurgents are having a moment. In Colorado tomorrow we’ll find out if that’s shifting to momentum, as a quartet of closely watched primary races reach their climax.

Mountain high: In the context of last week’s New York City earthquake, what had once looked like a relatively low-key primary date tomorrow is now anything but. We have a professional Donald Trump-basher threatening to block a senator’s path to the governor’s mansion. We have a political novice — not even born when her veteran opponent first took her seat in Congress — on the verge of an extraordinary ouster. We have a key midterm battleground shaping up to be fought sharply from the left. And we might — might — even see one of Colorado’s best-known politicians face a radical progressive challenge.

New York is one thing, but Colorado is another. Expect to learn plenty tomorrow night about how insurgent messaging really lands outside of a coastal metropolis, and what that means for the future of the Democrats — and perhaps the presidential contest in 2028.

And I’ll skip down to (there’s a reason as you will see)…

Beyond the governor’s mansion: As Playbook told you last week, the most closely watched House primary tomorrow will be in the 1st Congressional District — essentially covering Denver itself — where 29-year-old lawyer-turned-barista Melat Kiros is trying to oust 15-term Rep.Diana DeGette. At 29, Kiros was born a few months after DeGette was first elected in 1997. The changing-of-the-guard narrative here is just waiting to be written.

DeGette is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and no moderate. She is also 68, so generational change is also a driving issue.

And this one does have shades of NYC. Kiros is a signed-up member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and her campaign is seeking to mimic the Zohran Mamdani method. National DSA chapters are hosting daily phone banks, with organizers vowing to overcome their opponents’ large corporate donations by knocking on tens of thousands of doors. Hasan Piker, the lightning-rod progressive Twitch streamer, told William he intends to host a phone-bank marathon for Kiros and to campaign in the state tomorrow.

Several recent polls have put Kiros out in front, and the shift in expectations through this final stretch has been striking. While it’s been known for a while that DeGette had a fight on her hands, plenty of observers now clearly believe she’s going to lose. “It’s not looking great,” one prominent Colorado Democratic strategist familiar with DeGette’s polling tells William. “It’s very tough when you’re fighting against a wave.”

The most recent poll has Kiros at 41% and DeGette at 36%, and some minor candidate has 6%, and lordy 18% are undecided; so things could change in a heartbeat.

The thing to know about CO-01 district is that it is D+29. Whoever wins the primary is going to win the General. The people in that district will elect the person that they want. This is what democracy (little dee) looks like.

Now, we return to the Colorado Governor’s race (which we left out above):

The shocker. Sen. Michael Bennet, the three-term senator and 2020 presidential wannabe, at one point appeared on a glide path to the Colorado governor’s mansion this fall. Far from it, POLITICO’s William Steakin reports this morning. Bennet’s opponent, Colorado AG Phil Weiser, has closed the gap dramatically and may yet come out on top after polls close in tomorrow’s primary.

Let off some steam, Bennet: “There may be only a slight Bennet advantage at this point,” a Democratic strategist tells William, revealing that private polling in the race has been “all over the place.”

And in the next graf, TBotP breaks their own thesis for this piece (emphasis mine):

“This is not the same leftist insurgency we witnessed in New York City last week, though there are clearly parallels to be drawn. While Weiser has positioned to Bennet’s left on certain policy issues, he’s mainly gained traction by casting himself as a battle-hardened anti-Trump warrior, ready to jolt the complacent Dem establishment and take the fight directly to the president. Weiser has sued Trump 66 times as AG, a record he’s leaning on heavily. It’s music to the ears of a Democratic base desperate for someone — anyone — to start clobbering back at Trump.”

This is a fairly standard political position in the age of the 4th Reich and not some sort of swarming hoard of commies at the gates, but by sandwiching it between that insurgency opening, Tiger Beat made it read as if Colorado is turning Bolshevik. Also please note that nowhere have I seen Weiser depicted as a socialist. What’s he even doing in this article?

The Mouth of Sauron, er, Axios is also concerned, very concerned:

Democratic leaders are increasingly alarmed that they’re facing their own brewing version of the GOP’s Tea Party rebellion 17 years ago, Axios’ Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein write.

Seriously, they say this after 3 elections in NY? Is three the definition of a wave in a House of 435 members? Why yes, apparently it is:

Why it matters: The wave of primary victories by democratic socialists and party outsiders has shocked establishment Democrats. But the rage has been building in the party for a decade.

It’s not just progressives vs. moderates. It’s also insiders vs. outsiders, with many Democratic voters angry at their own party.

Is there ever an election where the voters are not mad at the Establishment? /snark

• Some Dems now believe a Trump-esque figure could take over the party in 2028 as an outlet for grassroots rage.
• Dan Pfeiffer, a former top aide to President Obama and now “Pod Save America” co-host, writes: “It is very clear that the groups of the left — Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution — are out-organizing, out-fundraising, out-working, out-maneuvering the traditional party institutions.”

Heaven forfend that, uh, citizens are organizing for their candidate. I think that’s how things work in a democracy, which I believe was the point of Pfeiffer’s reporting.

Do continue:

🔎 Zoom in: Democrats’ growing distrust of party leaders — and embrace of left-wing outsiders and populists — is rooted in Donald Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.

• Trump’s 2024 victory radicalized some Dems who’d previously seen his first term as a fluke.

I think that we were morbidly depressed and worried about the state of our democracy with fascism ascendant and Puritopians absent from voting.

🗳️ State of play: Left-wingers, outsiders and Democratic Socialists of America members have racked up victories coast to coast during Trump’s second term.

That coast-to-coast thingie? It’s Seattle’s Mayor Katie Wilson. Technically I suppose that is coast-to-coast, but two mayors (not a national election) does not a wave make. You cannot even plot a bell curve.

• Democratic socialists and progressives followed last year’s election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani by beating two incumbent House Democrats and winning an open seat’s primary in the city last week.
• Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George won D.C.’s Democratic primary for mayor, making her mayor-in-waiting. She energized young voters by promising to tackle affordability and take on Trump.

The observant reader will note (above) another local race for the Mayor of DC.

I know this Socialist Wave reporting is designed to get clicks and hand-wringing out of middle America, but come-on. Three representatives, two mayors and maybe a third? That’s hardly enough to worry Tevya to flee Anatevka.

Published with permission of Mock Paper Scissors