What's fueling the far-left surge? 'Democrats themselves hate the party‘

To Seattleites, the civil war erupting among national Democrats is not exactly breaking news.

Seattle has been ground zero for the rise of the far left, from democratic socialists to the pure thing, for years now.

But what's bubbling up in primary elections around the country has taken the upheaval in the party to a new level. It's becoming like the Democrats' version of the tea party movement, which upended the GOP more than a decade ago.

"Without any shadow of a doubt, the far left is surging in our party more than at any time I can recall," said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Bellevue. He has a lot of time in politics to recall, as he's completing his 30th year in Congress.

Three Congressional Democratic incumbents have lost to democratic socialist upstarts in just the past few weeks. In those primaries, which took place in New York, Maryland and Colorado, 12 Democratic state legislators also lost their seats to challengers from the left.

"You can call it misdirected anger or an unreasonable purity test, but Democratic voters in deep blue, especially urban, districts are sending a very clear message," Adam Carlson, a progressive pollster, wrote on X. "If you take corporate PAC money and/or vote to send aid to Israel, you're on notice."

Here in Washington state, that description fits Smith - and to some extent, U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal. (She doesn't take corporate PAC money but has supported Israel.)

Smith's race has it all. He's being challenged from the left by a Democrat who is a pro-Palestinian protester, Melissa Chaudhry, as well as a true-red socialist, former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, running as an independent. He also has a Republican opponent, Doug Basler, who is a proud election denier. They'll all be jumbled on the ballot together in Washington's wide open top-two primary Aug. 4.

Gluesenkamp Perez has a traditional GOP opponent, state Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia. But she's also facing a more-robust-than-expected fusillade from the left, in progressive challenger Brent Hennrich. Last week, Hennrich won the endorsement of the 20th Legislative District Democrats, centered on Cowlitz and Lewis counties, who are upset that Gluesenkamp Perez votes with Republicans about 20% of the time.

"I'm running unfortunately against the most MAGA and Trump-aligned Democrat in the entire House," Hennrich pitched to the Washington Democratic Party convention last month in Spokane. Technically, she ranked second in 2025 for most cross-party votes.

Polls show that pitches like this are working - not in all cases, but in many. During the first Trump administration, progressive anger was directed at Republicans. Now it's radiating inward.

"The thing driving down Democratic approval is that Democrats themselves hate the party," said Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser in the Obama administration. He cited recent polling showing 53% of Democrats are dissatisfied with their own party.

"People are pissed at the party for losing the 2024 election and not doing a better job of standing up to Trump," he said. "This is why Democrats are simultaneously telling pollsters that their party sucks and then voting for that same party at every opportunity like their lives depend on it."

The anti-establishment rebellion is reminiscent of the 2010 Republican tea party, which dubbed its own leaders RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) who weren't conservative enough or, in many cases, nativist enough for the base.

This year for Democrats, the throw-'em-out mood has gravitated down to state legislative races in Washington. More than a dozen incumbent Democrats are facing "fights within the family," mostly from the left.

Even the state Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, believes this tide might sweep him out. A challenge from worker organizer Hannah Sabio-Howell, in Seattle's blue-as-can-be 43rd District, isn't about Trump. It's that Pedersen, sponsor of the millionaires tax and arguably the most progressive leader of the state Senate in history, is actually too cautious and moderate for the times.

"I'm calling the question of what it means to be a Democrat in the 43rd District," Sabio-Howell defiantly told the group at their endorsement meeting - which she won.

U.S. Rep. Smith said the wellspring of the anger is legit, even as he insists it's misdirected.

"We lost elections we should have won," he said. "We lost to Donald Trump twice. You can't argue with that."

The old guard is seen as too old. There's also rising inequality and high prices, plus how the political system is seen as kowtowing to the uber-rich.

"That's a big part of our brand problem - we have not been effective," Smith acknowledged.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson tapped into all these themes in upsetting the mainstream Democrat Bruce Harrell in last fall's campaign.

But Smith, Gluesenkamp Perez and others say it's folly to use these discontents to try to shoehorn socialism or hyper-progressive crusades into suburban or even rural districts. In recent years, the rising left has only won in big cities. It hasn't deposed any Republican incumbents - only other Democrats.

"Once the progressives start in on open borders or identity politics or their criminal justice ideas, it damages the brand of the whole party," Smith said. "It's bad policy. And it's also bad politics outside of places like Brooklyn or Seattle. My district has suburbs."

Smith's 9th Congressional District has parts of South Seattle while the majority is in Renton, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Kent and Federal Way.

The democratic socialists, like the Tea Party before them, argue that moderation and bipartisanship is the disease.

"The political pundit class has deluded themselves into believing there is some deep well of centrist voters looking for milquetoast policy," said the Seattle chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. "The reality is Americans are looking for massive, structural change to our political and economic system."

You don't have to go far from Seattle, though, to see how different even Democratic politics can be.

In southwest Washington, Gluesenkamp Perez shies away from talking about Trump or highly partisan subjects at all. That's by design, as her 3rd District has now voted for Trump three times in a row.

"Avoid: generic opposition to the President as a person," reads a strategy memo from her campaign team. Also avoid: "left-right or ideological framing; (or) references to national party conflict."

Imagine a politics that isn't intensely ideological or framed around Trump. In Seattle, you can't. Yet there it is, only a two-hour drive away.

Is the Democratic Party big or strong enough to contain these multitudes, without breaking? It's the story of this summer's primary, and voting starts in just two weeks.

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