The 2026 midterms aren’t supposed to go well for the Republican Party. Historically speaking, midterm elections are bad for the party in power, and when Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, it’s a recipe for a bad cycle. However, there have long been signs that the environment won’t be so bad for the GOP because, well, voters aren’t exactly in love with the Democrats, either. But, there’s another factor at play that could take an anomalously tight political environment and help nudge Republicans over the finish line: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
Now, Bernie Sanders is a hero to the Democrat Party's base, but behind closed doors, a lot of Democrats increasingly wish he would stay out of their primaries. But, he hasn’t. He has spent this election cycle doing what he does best: anointing far-left candidates as the party’s future. The trouble is how many of those candidates turned out to be walking scandal factories, which is rattling establishment Democrats who need every winnable seat they can get heading into the midterms.
Take Graham Platner in Maine. Sanders backed him early, stuck with him through a Nazi tattoo, mockery of a Purple Heart recipient, and a history of infidelity, the porta-potty thing, even the accusations of domestic abuse… only to watch the campaign collapse once rape allegations surfaced. Maine Democrats are now scrambling to find a new nominee in a state they need to flip if they want any shot at retaking the Senate.
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Then there is Texas, where state Rep. James Talarico (D-Tex.) is supposed to be the great far-left hope in a state Democrats have been desperate to flip for years. He believes there are six genders, said God is “non-binary” and has an unhealthy obsession with trans kids.
Good luck selling that one outside Austin.
The next test comes on Aug. 4, when Michigan Democrats vote in a Senate primary that could decide whether Sanders helps or wrecks the party's chances of holding Sen. Gary Peters' (D-Mich.) seat as he retires. Sanders is backing Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left activist who has campaigned alongside Hasan Piker, over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), the candidate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants. Establishment Democrats fear that if El-Sayed wins, Peters' seat may go Republican in November.
Lose Michigan, and Democratic hopes of retaking the Senate majority by 2028 take another hit, along with whatever is left of Sanders' reputation as a kingmaker.
In Colorado, the Bernie-endorsed Melat Kiros recently won her primary in the first congressional district, which could make that seat vulnerable in November. Melat Kiros is a DSA darling who talks like 9/11 and Oct. 7 were just America and Israel getting what they had coming, not acts of evil that changed history. She was bounced from a New York law firm for an open letter that effectively ran interference for Hamas‑sympathetic campus radicals, and she still can’t bring herself to call a firebombing of pro‑Israel protesters antisemitic, because she doesn’t “know what was in the heart” of the attacker.
"I don't know why you want to keep pushing these kinds of people," Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told Fox News’s Kayleigh McEnany.
Polls consistently show Americans are considerably less enthusiastic about socialism than the far left assumes. Every scandal-plagued Sanders pick reinforces that gap. Given what's at stake in November, the bottom line is that Sanders' judgment might be the biggest liability Democrats cannot afford this year.
