STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Democratic socialists and progressives won a lot of elections last night. Now they will be in Congress with other Democrats they often have criticized. NPR political reporter Elena Moore has been covering progressives and the future of the Democratic Party, and she's in our studios. Welcome.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
INSKEEP: How well did the left flank do exactly?
MOORE: Well, I mean, Steve, to put it in perspective, a Democrat carrying Michigan or Maine is a win for the party already.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MOORE: A progressive doing it is huge. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine both centered their Senate bids around core progressive policies, right? You know, focused on uplifting the working class through things like Medicare for All and universal childcare. They also embraced, frankly, more, you know, controversial positions that people have argued could have turned off moderates in these states, like abolishing ICE and stopping U.S. funding - U.S. military aid for Israel. But, you know, these candidates were victorious anyway.
INSKEEP: Yeah. We could talk sometime about how there is really kind of a progressive streak in the Midwest, which people think of as more conservative.
MOORE: Sure.
INSKEEP: There's a lot of different kinds of people mixed together. But that's two Senate races. Where else did progressives do well?
MOORE: Well, I think the word progressive in itself can mean a lot of different things right now, but when you look at the furthest left wing of this party, it looks like they are going to have a larger block in Congress, but, you know, still small. For example, in comparison, in 2018, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you know, was elected to the House as the lone democratic socialist in the House. Next year, that block is expected to more than triple with wins in reliably blue cities around the country, Steve, from New York and Philadelphia to Denver and Detroit.
INSKEEP: OK. So you'll have this block of people who call themselves democratic socialists or who identify as progressive.
MOORE: Right.
INSKEEP: But will they really have that much influence the way things are shaking out?
MOORE: Yeah. I mean, House Democrats are expected to have a huge majority, unlike Republican speaker Mike Johnson, who has an extremely slim majority and has had to make sure his entire caucus, essentially, is on board with every divisive vote. And honestly, frankly, even some that seemed like they shouldn't be divisive and easy party line votes, that is not going to be the case for Democrats, likely. That means Democratic leaders can afford to essentially have some dissent within the Party and still pass bills in the House that have broad consensus. So they can potentially afford to lose some of that left-flank support on votes where progressives and maybe DSA-endorsed members feel that the Party doesn't go far enough.
One thing to keep in mind, though, Steve, is that, you know, these incoming members do have large, you know, followings. So they may not have a lot of voting power, but they've energized a part of the Democratic Party that's felt, frankly, unseen by national leaders in recent years.
INSKEEP: Oh, and that raises a big question. Is it going to be a challenge for Democrats with this new bigger, broader coalition to keep the faith with all of their different kinds of voters?
MOORE: Yeah. Well, we know that Trump's unpopularity drove people to the polls. But that doesn't change the fact that the future of the Democratic Party is still in question. It's a Party that doesn't have a clear leader and has struggled to unite factions of their core base, which include voters that lean more left, like young voters. Democrats won young people - voters under 30 - by a massive margin, Steve, last night, 47 points.
INSKEEP: Wow.
MOORE: This is a group that pushed - that felt pushed away from the Party two years ago. These are voters that aren't wedded to a party and are going to be looking for tangible answers to their economic woes.
INSKEEP: NPR's Elena Moore. Thanks for coming by.
MOORE: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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