The Big Picture

Primary season is in full swing, and the 2026 elections are shaping up as a real-time stress test for the Democratic Party's identity crisis.

On one side: socialist organizers riding Zohran Mamdani's coattails in New York City. On the other: pragmatic Democrats in Iowa trying to win over voters who don't care about DSA membership cards.

The mainstream media is covering these races in silos. Together, they tell one story.

New York: The Socialist Machine Is Running Primaries

New York's primary is set for June 23, according to voter guide reporting from Yahoo News. Early voting opened June 13 — same day as the voter registration deadline and absentee ballot request cutoff. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The New York Times frames the congressional primaries in Manhattan and Brooklyn as a test of "Mayor Zohran Mamdani's socialist movement." Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary last June by 44 points in at least one Queens district, according to City & State New York, and now his movement is running candidates up and down the ballot.

The most interesting race isn't the congressional fights — it's a state Senate seat in western Queens where the Democratic Socialists of America are running against themselves.

Retiring state Sen. Michael Gianaris is leaving a seat that the NYC-DSA chapter wants to fill with Aber Kawas, a Palestinian American organizer who moved to Queens in 2024 — two years ago — according to City & State New York. She's backed by Make the Road Action New York and United Auto Workers Region 9A.

She's running against Assembly Member Steven Raga, who became the first Filipino American elected to the New York State Legislature in 2022. Raga is a dues-paying DSA member himself — but he's NOT a "Socialist in Office," which apparently is a meaningful distinction in this world.

Raga has union backing and longer district ties. Kawas has ideological purity points and endorsements from elected democratic socialists.

The left has fractured enough that DSA is running against DSA over who is sufficiently socialist.

New York: What the Coverage Misses

The New York Times is treating the Mamdani movement as a political force to be analyzed on its own terms — nearly uncritically. Affordability is the stated issue, but the policy prescriptions are hard-left economics that have a poor track record in practice.

City & State New York does note that "affordability will continue to be a major theme across the board" — while also flagging that some incumbents are leaving office specifically because of a new cap on legislators' outside income. Some politicians would rather quit than give up their side hustle.

New Jersey: Booker Runs Unopposed While Republicans Brawl

Just across the river, New Jersey's primary is June 2, per FOX 5 New York.

Sen. Cory Booker is running for reelection as a Democrat and is currently unopposed in the primary. ZERO Democratic challengers. Meanwhile, four Republicans — Robert Lebovics, Justin Murphy, Richard Tabor, and Alex Zdan — are fighting each other for the chance to face him in the fall.

New Jersey runs a closed primary. Registered Democrats and Republicans vote for their party nominees. Unaffiliated voters can declare a party at the polls.

The NJ-7 congressional race is drawing significant attention. FOX 5 notes it "quickly became one of the most closely watched Democratic primaries in New York City" — a description that is geographically puzzling given NJ-7 is a New Jersey district, but reflects the cross-Hudson attention the race has drawn — with multiple progressive candidates from Brooklyn and Queens competing to replace Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

The rest of New Jersey's congressional map features a mix of incumbents and competitive open seats, including contested races in the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 11th, and 12th districts.

Iowa: Democrats Are Trying Something Different

Far from New York City's socialist theater, Iowa Democrats are taking a different approach.

The New York Times reports that Iowa's Senate Democratic primary features two candidates with "compelling personal stories" — a Paralympic champion and an Eagle Scout — both of whom have stressed their independence from the national party.

Iowa is deep-red territory. Running as a Mamdani clone in Iowa would be political suicide.

Iowa Democrats are explicitly distancing themselves from the national party brand. The New York socialist wave travels to western Queens. It doesn't travel to Des Moines.

Three Different Parties, Three Different States

Three different states, three different versions of the Democratic Party all voting within weeks of each other.

In New York: socialist candidates fight over who is more socialist, while Mamdani's movement floods the ballot.

In New Jersey: Booker coasts while Republicans fight to find a credible challenger.

In Iowa: Democrats ditch the national brand entirely just to have a shot.

The media wants to tell a unified story about a Democratic "resistance" or a "wave." The reality is messier. The party is fractured between a hard-left urban machine and candidates in competitive states who want nothing to do with it.

Regular voters in New York will decide on June 23 whether the DSA's momentum from Mamdani's mayoral win actually extends down-ballot — or whether it was one charismatic candidate in a favorable year.