Is This Really the Left’s Big Moment? We’ll Know in Two Months.

Progressives and socialists made historic gains in Democratic primaries. But what happens in November is what really matters.

It didn’t take long after the primary polls closed on August 18 for Jared Mosko­witz, a moderate Democrat who has represented a South Florida congressional district since 2023, to declare victory—not just over his opponent, union organizer Oliver Larkin, but also the Democratic Socialists of America, which had backed Larkin’s campaign. “Florida is known for hurricanes,” Moskowitz told Politico. “And so the DSA is a disaster area in Florida—and there’s no federal reimbursement coming to help these people.” On X, around the same time, he sent a message to the leftist streamer Hasan Piker, who had campaigned for Larkin: “My condolences.” The following morning, almost as an afterthought, Moskowitz returned to X to thank his family and his voters for their support. “My dad died of cancer 4 years ago,” he wrote. “He would have enjoyed all of this. I miss him.”

Moskowitz is both pugnacious and extremely online, which also means he’s a bit of a troll. And Moskowitz had reason to gloat. The biggest source of the campaign’s bitterness had been perhaps the one issue the two candidates agreed on: Moskowitz himself, a staunchly pro-Israel centrist who at times resembles a Republican. Indeed, Moskowitz has described himself as a “[Ron] DeSantis Democrat”—a nod to his stint as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management under the state’s term-limited, MAGA-lite governor. (It’s not clear if there are other DeSantis Democrats, or if Moskowitz is a caucus of one.)

Moskowitz and his allies argued that running anyone but a pro-Israel moderate would amount to political suicide in the recently redrawn 25th congressional district, which voted for Donald Trump by nearly 10 points in 2024. Meanwhile, Larkin was campaigning on the idea that someone with Moskowitz’s politics no longer had a place in the Democratic Party. He ultimately lost by nearly 30 points. Cue the Moskowitz gloating.

There was just one problem. The very same night, Angie Nixon, a young, progressive state representative from Jacksonville, won a shocking upset victory over Alex Vindman, a hero of the resistance during Trump’s first term, in the state’s Democratic Senate primary. Vindman had the backing of a number of national Democrats and spent more than $9 million—almost 13 times what his opponent put into the race. Oh, and Nixon had just joined the Democratic Socialists of America months earlier. Florida is known for hurricanes, after all.

Welcome to the wild, chaotic world of Democratic politics in 2026, where every competitive primary result was contradicted by the next.

Primary season can seem endless, but things got really interesting in August, which began with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive doctor campaigning on a platform of Medicare for All, becoming Michigan’s first Muslim Senate nominee. He narrowly defeated Haley Stevens, the suburban Detroit House member who was backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and who had outspent El-Sayed by roughly the same margin by which Vindman outspent Nixon.

A week later, Francesca Hong, a former chef and progressive member of........

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