Democrats want to win back Congress. First they need to weather their primary battles

By Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — At least a dozen US House Democrats are already facing primary challenges, as progressives seek to transform a party regaining its footing after 2024 by tapping into voters’ frustration with its leaders ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Unlike past intraparty battles, this current fight is less about policy differences and more about style. A steadily growing group of challengers, backed by groups such as Justice Democrats and former DNC vice chair David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve, argues the party needs to replace incumbents in safe districts with more inspiring candidates who can better respond to President Donald Trump and Republicans in control of Congress.

But some in the party warn that the effort to challenge incumbents is a distraction from the shared goal of defeating Republicans.

“Progressives do the hard work of organizing,” said Liam Kerr, the co-founder of Welcome PAC, a group aiming to increase centrists’ influence in the party. “Centrists tend to do the sporadic work of helping candidates win in red districts and then producing the data to say, ‘I told you so,’ to the left.”

Democrats are facing contested Senate primaries in Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, Iowa and Texas, where US Rep. Jasmine Crockett launched a last-minute campaign that fanned the debate over whether her slashing style will drive up Democratic turnout or make it harder to win moderate and Republican voters willing to abandon Trump.

The party needs to net four seats to win back control of the Senate next year, with Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff also running for reelection in a state Trump won last year.

At the US House level, progressives and moderates have split in key primaries, including bids to take on California Republican Rep. David Valadao and win the Nebraska seat from which Rep. Don Bacon is retiring.

Progressives have argued that Democrats must present a vision that will win back the voters who abandoned the party in 2024 instead of engaging in “a strategic political retreat,” as Democratic strategist James Carville argued in a New York Times opinion piece earlier this year.

“If left to their own devices, the establishment of the Democratic Party has told us many times over that they’re comfortable with the kind of a play-dead strategy,” said Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

A debate over the right voice

In Memphis, the Justice Democrats endorsed Justin Pearson, a state representative who gained national prominence in 2023 after he and another Black lawmaker were briefly expelled from the Tennessee legislature after leading a gun control protest.

Pearson, 30, is running against US Rep. Steve Cohen, a 10-term lawmaker and former state senator.

“It is impossible that the same people who have been in power for 30 or 40 years are going to be the ones who help to change the trajectory of our nation for the next 30 or 40,” Pearson said. “We have to have new voices, new ideas, new leadership and new energy right now.”

Cohen, 76, defended his record throughout his four decades in elected office. He said he has introduced legislation in Congress on “the cutting edge of civil rights and consumer rights” and supported Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage. He argued younger candidates don’t have a monopoly on new ideas.

“I don’t know that we necessarily need new voices,” he told CNN. “There may be certain districts that do – I can’t talk for all the people they’re running against – but not in my situation.”

He also questioned the argument that he and other Democrats haven’t done enough to fight the Trump administration. The congressman said that he’s spoken out consistently against Trump and backed impeaching the president during his first term. Cohen said he didn’t think Democrats could do more than what they’ve already done.

“They say we haven’t done enough. Well, what would you do?” he said of those challenging incumbents. “Go down to the White House and handcuff yourself to the to the fence and refuse to leave? That doesn’t help your constituents a lot.”

Pearson said voters in the Memphis-area district want to see lawmakers lead and embrace the power their offices hold, even in the minority.

“We need active leadership, not just passive, bare minimum, bare-bones work from my opponent and honestly, a few other people who are being primaried,” Pearson said.

Funding also becomes an issue

While age has been a factor in several races, progressive challengers have also focused on how their incumbent opponents have funded their campaigns.

“There is a difference in generations, but also it’s this difference about who is funding and backing our elected officials,” said Nida Allam, a 31-year-old Durham County commissioner who is challenging two-term North Carolina Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee.

Allam lost the 2022 primary for the Durham-area seat to the 69-year-old Foushee, whose campaign was supported by pro-Israel groups including AIPAC.

Foushee said in a statement that she will not accept donations from AIPAC this cycle and said she has been proud to “stand up for our shared progressive values in Congress.”

“Throughout my years in public service, I’ve faced every challenge with the same approach: show up, do the work, and stay focused on delivering real results for North Carolina,” the statement reads. “I am proud of the legislation I have supported, the votes I have taken, and the services my office has provided to constituents.”

At times, the factions within the party have aligned behind a candidate. Sanders, Welcome PAC and the moderate Blue Dog wing of the party have all endorsed Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who narrowly lost her 2024 bid to unseat Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Cooke attributed her support across the party spectrum to her focus on economic policies, such as the impact of Trump’s trade policies on rural communities. After coming within three points of beating Van Orden in 2024, Cooke’s current campaign has one advantage she didn’t have last year: the likely absence of a drawn-out primary.

“We have the runway, I think, to build the type of campaign that really reaches people,” she said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.