A democratic socialist narrowly lost Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. But conversations with swing voters suggest voters may be more open to the “socialist” label than expected.
Transcript
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Democratic Party continues to see an intraparty divide. Farther-left progressive candidates who identify as democratic socialists have had a rising influence, winning some notable primaries. But some election results this week might have shown limits to that influence. To talk about all of this and some unique findings on how swing voters are feeling about socialism, we’re joined now by NPR’s senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
CHANG: Hi. OK, so this week, a self-described democratic socialist narrowly lost the Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin. What did you make of that?
LIASSON: Well, what I make of it is that the Democratic Party is engaged in a giant experiment about whether Democrats think that left-wing candidates – candidates who claim the socialist mantle, like Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, who lost…
CHANG: Right.
LIASSON: …Can win in swing states and swing districts, not just deep blue areas like New York City or Colorado. So now we’re moving a few steps down the road, and this experiment is taking place in the Midwest. A democratic socialist, as you said, in Wisconsin, who public polls showed was well ahead, lost a very close race, and that has some Democratic moderates breathing a sigh of relief in Wisconsin. It shows that voters might be reluctant to back a socialist candidate when there’s a good chance that a Trump-backed Republican wins the seat or office in the general election. And I think the bottom line on this is that affordability is very important to Democrats, but electability might be even more important.
CHANG: Well, what is the next step in this experiment with running progressives?
LIASSON: Yeah. In Michigan, the progressive candidate, Abdul El-Sayed – who doesn’t describe himself as a socialist but does share some of the same views on taxing billionaires or healthcare, abolishing ICE – he won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate…
CHANG: Right.
LIASSON: …And now we have to see how he does in a general election in what is a toss-up race. El-Sayed’s opponent is Mike Rogers, a Trump-backed Republican who started out as a very harsh critic of Trump, especially after the attack on the Capitol in 2021. But lately he’s been echoing the president when it comes to election fraud claims. Those claims are false. But this is going to be a test of a left-wing Democratic candidate against a MAGA Republican in a swing state.
CHANG: Well, yeah, speaking of swing states and swing voters, I know that you observed focus groups this week that added some nuance to this whole debate. What did you hear from them?
LIASSON: Yes, this is our monthly focus group Swing Voter Project. We talk to voters who backed Joe Biden in 2020, then Donald Trump in 2024. These are not people who tend to vote in Democratic primaries. They’re much less ideological, but they are exactly the kind of independent and moderate swing voters that Democrats in swing states like Michigan have to win if they’re going to succeed in a general election. And one of the biggest surprises in our focus group this month, which was from the battleground state of Nevada, was their reaction to socialism.
They were asked whether they would automatically disqualify a self-described socialist candidate. And most of these voters – these are all Trump ’24 voters – they were remarkably open-minded. And we’re going to hear a little bit from some of these participants. They agreed to be in the focus group on the condition they only be identified using their first names. So here is Marianne, Shan and Melody.
MARIANNE: I think of Democrats as being more centrist, whereas socialist Democrats are more about community.
SHAN: They’re looking for, you know, higher wages, unions.
MELODY: They’re at least looking at ways to make sure that everybody is taken care of.
LIASSON: So there really were two takeaways. One, that they were so open-minded about socialism and not reflexively disqualifying, but also how these voters described socialism. They seem to describe it as a more robust social safety net, more like social democracy. They did have more negative things to say about communism, and that explains why Donald Trump has chosen communist as the label he wants to tie to Democrats. He doesn’t call them socialists because he knows that socialism isn’t the negative epithet that it might have been at one time.
CHANG: Exactly. OK, so what else struck you in this month’s focus groups?
LIASSON: The other thing that struck me is how bitter and angry voters are about the economy. They’re not poor, but they feel broke. And we know from polls that voters, especially young voters, are open to socialism only because they feel capitalism isn’t working. It’s too hard for people to afford the basics of a middle-class life – healthcare, education, housing. And here is just a little taste of what these voters said – Justin, Jasmine and Marianne – when asked about their own economic situation.
JUSTIN: God, the rising cost of everything from apples to gas to roof over my head to insurance to everything.
JASMINE: These billionaires have all this money, and we are making minimum wage.
MARIANNE: My son has worked on the Strip for 22 years, and he can’t make ends meet. So I have to make ends meet for him.
LIASSON: Again, these are all Trump 2024 voters. But this is another big experiment. Will that animus, will that anger at incumbents be enough to lead these swing voters to vote for Democrats in the midterms? And so far, we are not seeing that. The Democratic Party is just as unpopular as the Republicans among these voters.
CHANG: That is NPR’s Mara Liasson. Thank you, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you.
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