The Democrat Party has a problem that the establishment doesn’t have a clue how to deal with. Its most radical members of Congress aren't radical enough for the activist base anymore, and one by one, they're getting picked off by candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, should have been safe. But Darializa Avila Chevalier beat him while running on a platform of shutting down prisons, eliminating ICE, erasing the border, and defunding police. She also opposes deporting illegal immigrants, period, including violent criminals.
It gets worse. In New York's 10th District, Brad Lander demolished Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who was no moderate. He was one of the loudest anti-Trump voices in the Democrat caucus and the lead counsel in the party's first impeachment attempt against President Donald Trump. Didn't matter. The base wanted more.
Then in New York's 7th District, Claire Valdez won the seat Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) is vacating. Valdez ran on citizenship and voting rights for illegal immigrants, taxpayer-funded transgender treatments, and scrapping private health insurance for every American, not just those on Obamacare. And she won.
This was a stunning rebuke of the party establishment in favor of its new kingmaker, socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and the voters just delivered a vote of no confidence that's now got people inside the party calling for new leadership.
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) went on SiriusXM's "Straight Shooter with Stephen A," with Stephen A. Smith and suggested that both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) should step aside for new leadership. Her argument: the party still hasn't recovered from getting wiped out in 2024.
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"To me, the lesson was simple. Democrats had too many priorities. They tried to make everyone happy and answer every question. When you prioritize everything, no one knows what you actually stand for," Slotkin told Smith. She contrasted that scattered approach with Trump's relentlessly singular message. "He came in with one clear message. He said, 'I'm going to make your life more affordable. I'm going to put more money in your pocket'... He won because he kept his message simple and focused on the issue Americans cared most about," she said, adding that a year and a half after Trump's win, "every day there's a debate within the party about the path forward."
Slotkin is supposedly part of the party's moderate wing. Now, I don’t think there really is a moderate wing of the party anymore, but regardless, hearing this from her tells you how bad things have gotten.
"That's why I believe we need significant new leadership," Slotkin said. "The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party." She compared her own party to a "circular firing squad," where "everyone is reacting to the crisis, but too few people are talking about what they actually want to accomplish," calling it "a fundamental failure of leadership."
When Smith asked her whether she meant Jeffries and Schumer specifically, Slotkin didn't blink. "I'm saying that if people can't recognize that the game has fundamentally changed and can't adapt, then they need to make room for others who can."
The Democrat Party is being cannibalized from the inside, and its leadership has no idea what to do about it. Now you've got a sitting senator publicly suggesting her own party's top two leaders need to go. We’re four months away from the midterm elections, and the Democrat Party is on the verge of a civil war, and it's about to get nasty.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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