Let a hundred left-wing challengers bloom
We don't really know what will work
I think there will probably be a lot of competitive Democratic primaries in 2026. Voters are pissed off about how things are going and frustrated by how our leaders don’t do anything, and that sentiment doesn’t seem to be limited to any particular parts of the country or factions of the Democratic electorate. The dividing line will probably not be strictly ideological, but more a question of whether you can fight or not, and whether you can signal independence from the Democratic establishment or not. Fortunately for the left, it will be difficult for moderate candidates to prove to people that they have something different to offer if they don’t actually do anything different. There is a natural advantage that candidates running on progressive platforms have, IF (big if) they run a serious campaign.
But what defines a serious campaign? Is it money, vibes, platform, having a track record? I don’t think anyone really knows for sure. Graham Platner is running for Senate in Maine on a progressive platform that looks like it’s being taken seriously from the jump. He doesn’t have a career in politics to point to but that might not be a bad thing; at least he has a team behind him with a track record of success electing progressive candidates. I think this can work in New England. Voters in those states have a history of electing political anomalies (Susan Collins, for one, and also Bernie). I’ve seen a lot of aesthetic comparisons between the launch video and Jared Golden, who is obviously totally different from him politically but that suggests to me that the vibe is more deliberately curated than not. I like that he’s not just doing the Zohran thing but actually running a campaign that is unique to his own person. Voters respond to that!
There is an interesting comparison to be made between Platner and Troy Jackson, the progressive candidate running for governor in Maine. Like Platner, Jackson is a white guy with a working-class background. He is also running on a populist platform and is explicitly antagonistic towards corporations. Unlike Platner, Jackson is a known quantity in Maine politics; he was president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024, and only left because of term limits. Since both elections will have the same primary date, I wonder how many people will vote for both of them, and if one will become more viable than the other. I think this is kind of the closest thing you can get to a controlled experiment on whether voters care if you have experience in politics.
I am wary of anybody who says you have to be THIS type of progressive candidate in order to appeal to voters because there is very actually little evidence of any of that. It’s not like there are that many left-wing candidates who have won high-level races, and different parts of the country are indeed different from each other. There have been candidates like Dan Osborn who present working class bonafides and stated independence from the two parties, but baked in that is a kind of social conservatism that talking heads will say you have to be willing to accept to win in red states. I mean, maybe. I don’t know why anyone is so sure about that. There is no example anyone can point to of someone running for Senate in Nebraska on a progressive immigration platform and losing. And Osborn didn’t even win!
Platner is throwing out that playbook for a truly progressive vision that does not shy away from immigration reform or being pro-Palestine, which could change the way the rest of us think about swing state elections. It could work. Political realities are constructed, not handed to us. In any case this is really just the beginning of what I’m sure will be a really long and ugly primary season nationwide, and I think we probably won’t be able to predict what makes for a successful left candidate because that will probably look different everywhere. I think Zohran won because he ran a campaign that was both authentic to him and also to the city of New York. What works here won’t work in Los Angeles, or Baltimore, or Wisconsin, or Maine or even New Jersey. I’m interested in seeing what does!
Wellness is the next big AI frontier. Sleep tech brand Eight Sleep announced yesterday that they raised $100 million in a Series D round from HSG, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and a couple of F1 drivers (???) This has got to be catnip for investors, since it combines two of Silicon Valley’s biggest obsessions: being extremely neurotic about health and wellness, and outsourcing all of life’s functions to AI. The #grindset never sleeps, but you can!
Israel is going ahead with their plan to invade Gaza City. The IDF called up over 50,000 reservists this week in preparation for the invasion, even as Hamas has accepted a U.S.-brokered proposal of a 60-day truce and releasing the hostages. The number of dead Palestinians since October 7, 2023 that FT is citing is 62,000, which is surely only a fraction of the actual death toll. I don’t know what to say anymore.
I enjoyed this breakdown of Zohran’s stellar video operation. As a DSA member it really pains me to give any credit to “social media” for this win, but Donald and the team at Melted Solids are really incredible at what they do. I hope they get a ton of business during the midterms!
The company that makes Labubus is worth more than twice as much as Hasbro and Mattel combined. Nothing makes me feel like we’re confined to our algorithmic silos more than the concept of a Labubu, which I could not bring myself to learn anything about until reading this story. I don’t know anyone who’s bought one, probably because I am pushing 30 and most of my friends are millennials. I think I’ve seen them in the wild like, twice. I feel really old just thinking about it.
Fewer and fewer voters are registering as Democrats. “We fell asleep at the switch,” a DNC member said of the problem. No kidding. I feel like I see DNC members and spokespeople give out quotes literally every single week. You would think having to go on a humiliation tour like this would inspire some self-reflection.