The Democrat brand is becoming even more tainted as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates who have been touted as the next generation of the Democrats' reign, have had lackluster performances on the campaign trail, or have crashed and burned. Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong is Exhibit A of this. Despite legacy media's efforts to paint DSA candidates as inevitable, some have barely won their primaries thanks to a truckload of baggage that has managed to stall their ability outrun their Republican opponents. Looking at you, Abdul El-Sayed.
So, Democrats are trying to bring different tools to the tool chest. One method is for Democrat Senate nominees in ruby red states to drop out, in order to clear the way for independents, who some voters may view as more moderate than the current crop of Democrats/DSA candidates. Democrats see this as their only chance to take the seat from Republicans.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Democrats trying to unseat Republican senators in deep-red states have pursued a new strategy this year: dropping out.
The Democratic Senate nominees in Nebraska, Idaho and South Dakota — all heavily Republican states — withdrew from the ballot after their primaries, clearing the field for independent candidates. Some Democrats hope that these moderate independents will draw enough crossover support from Republicans and centrist voters who would never back a Democrat to make the races competitive.
“We have to do things differently, or more out-of-the-box, to try and expand the playing field,” said Doug Sosnik, a Democratic strategist and former political director for President Bill Clinton.
But as the Michigan Senate race between former Congressman Mike Rogers (R) and DSA gadfly Abdul El-Sayed (D) reveals, the taint of DSA has caused low information voters to look harder and dig deeper, and they don't seem to like what they see. In El-Sayed's case, since the August 4 primary, Decision Desk HQ's polling shows Rogers is in the lead, with +2.6 advantage. The latest El-Sayed baggage, manufactured or legitimate, seems to be dragging this DSA darling down.
Despite attempts to distance themselves from Democrats and DSA, these candidates instead get immediate shade cast upon them as either Democrat spoilers or more-of-the-same craven incompetency.
Idaho is another example. U.S. Senate incumbent Jim Risch (R-ID) won his May 19 primary by 67 percent. His challenger, Democrat David Roth, won his by 62 percent. Yet two months later, Roth dropped out of the race, supposedly to shift his efforts to other areas.
The Democratic candidate who hoped to unseat U.S. Sen. Jim Risch in Idaho announced Tuesday that he is dropping out of the race, leaving Independent Todd Achilles as the challenger to the longtime Republican.
David Roth, who won the Democratic primary in May, said he was proud of his campaign and believes in what Democrats are fighting for across Idaho, but decided to shift his efforts to other areas.
Bottom line, Roth knew it was a lost cause and chose not to waste the money and political capital. Now, ID Independent candidate Todd Achilles is finding that this "tack to the middle" strategy is failing him bigly. He has already been outed for his past affiliation as a liberal Democrat, his financial support to Democrat candidates, and his support of leftist causes like allowing biological boys to play in women's sports.
A recent Peak Insights poll shows Jim Risch leading in the 2026 Idaho Senate race with 52%. Todd Achilles follows with 18%, Natalie Fleming at 9%, and Matt Loesby at 2%. pic.twitter.com/Fec3h8S6Br
— News Now (@NewsNowUS) August 15, 2026
In terms of Nebraska, things are not looking very good either, particularly since the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate, Cindy Burbank, had drawn controversy even before she decided to drop out of the race. Burbank had been previously accused, even by Democrats, of entering the race solely to boost the candidacy of Independent for U.S. Senate, Dan Osborn, who now faces incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE).
Ricketts’ campaign released a statement Friday on Burbank dropping out.
“Dan Osborn has rigged yet another party’s ballot because he is the Democrats’ nominee,” the statement said.
My colleague Rusty Weiss also pulled the lid off Osborn as a "fake independent" with an enforcer wife who hands him money in order to further his Senate race.
WATCH:
Meet Megan Osborn, wife of Nebraska Senate hopeful and fake "Independent" Dan Osborn.
— Rusty (@Rusty_Weiss) May 6, 2026
Osborn once bragged that his wife would serve as his “secret weapon” on the campaign trail.
That appears to entail being his enforcer at events. pic.twitter.com/2kEAXxtyVD
Yeah, that screams candidate for the people, doesn't it? Our sister site Townhall Media has also exposed Osborn's questionable ties to a person who doxed an ICE agent.
New bombshell undercover video obtained by Townhall Media appears to show Ruark Hotopp, a close ally of "Independent" Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn, bragging about his apparent involvement in doxxing an ICE agent and implicating someone sharing the name of Osborn's… pic.twitter.com/U9iPI17HSX
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 23, 2026
New bombshell undercover video obtained by Townhall Media appears to show Ruark Hotopp, a close ally of "Independent" Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn, bragging about his apparent involvement in doxxing an ICE agent and implicating someone sharing the name of Osborn's communications director.
Osborn is also alleged to have been instrumental in recruiting Maine Democrat U.S. Senate failure Graham Platner. You cannot make this stuff up. Suffice to say this strategy requires independent candidates of substance, and that's the factor that appears to be lacking. They're simply Democrats and DSA in a different dress.
The other Democrat strategy appears to be pushing out the elderly incumbents to replace them with the younger DSA and other more youthful candidates, as my colleague Becky Noble detailed.
In the run-up to the 2026 midterm election, an interesting trend is emerging. Younger Democrat candidates, many of them Democratic Socialists, are running against and defeating much older incumbents in primaries across the country. But older Republican incumbents are managing to hold on to their seats. Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-1), 69, was recently defeated by 29-year-old Democratic Socialist Milat Kiros. Same for Reps. Shri Thanedar, (MI-13), 71, who lost to Michigan State Rep Donovan McKinney, 34, and John Larson (CT-1), 78, who lost to former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, 47. Bronin is the only candidate among those who is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Nobody will miss the Michigan nutbag Thanedar, and apparently Larson was suffering the same fate as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), when he froze up from a seizure during a press conference. But this is definitely the DSA-progressive Democrat agenda to win in November 2026 and 2028, as Axios has noted.
What they're saying: "Democratic voters are hungry for a new generation of leaders who can credibly argue they'll fight for change," Amanda Litman, founder of progressive group Run For Something, told Axios.
Bronin's defeat of Larson — who positioned himself as the progressive in the race — shows that "'sick of the status quo' cuts across ideological lines," Litman said.
"We have a generation of younger people who are fed up," former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, whose group Leaders We Deserve has been supporting many of these primary challenges, said in an interview.
Such a culling of Democrats by Democrats has not occurred since 2012.
By the numbers: Larson is one of seven House Democrats who have lost their primaries this year — five of whom are past retirement age.
Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), 69, Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), 71, and Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), 71, all lost challenges to younger opponents affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), 78, lost to 38-year-old freshman Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) after the two were placed in the same seat by GOP-led mid-decade redistricting.
These losses, along with the ousters of Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), make 2026 tied with 2012 as the worst year for Democratic incumbents in primaries in the 21st century.
In the cases of the Senate candidates running as independent and the fading mystique of Abdul El-Sayed, the deep rot inside of the Democrat Party has finally become apparent to the average voter, and they are paying attention and hopefully will choose differently. In the case of Michigan, some lifelong Democrats are rejecting El-Sayed's radical agenda for Mike Roger's common-sense one.
Despite being on an anti-incumbent bent, voters are becoming allergic to crazy. In the remaining 80 days to the November midterms, Republicans need to drive sanity home, along with offering a fresh take on how they will continue to attack the issues that plague America and the problems Americans face.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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