This article is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

As insurgent candidates offering critiques of the Democratic Party won primary after primary in 2025 and 2026, pundits were left wondering: were the Democrats having their own “Tea Party moment”? Back in 2010, the Tea Party was key to securing massive GOP legislative gains, even as its reactionary edge cost the GOP winnable senate seats in places like Delaware and Nevada.

Progressive triumphs in Democratic primaries during president Trump’s second administration might suggest something similar is on the way. Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo in the race for New York’s mayoralty, Abdul El-Sayed’s triumphed against establishment pick Haley Stevens in the Michigan Senate primary, and Graham Platner easily dispatched — despite scandals of such magnitude he would ultimately have to withdraw as the party’s general election candidate — Gov. Janet Mills in the Maine Senate primary. Each candidate offered fresher rhetoric, more ambitious politics, and a critique of the Democratic Party, allowing them to edge out — or in some cases destroy — their opponents. Cue the invocations of the Tea Party and questions about whether or not “the Democratic Party might very well be about to explode.”  

But comparisons between the Democratic Party’s fresh crop of candidates and the Tea Party do not really stand up to scrutiny. Tea Partiers were motivated by an anti-systemic energy that had deeper roots than the current ire of Democratic voters, and the demographics of the GOP meant the party ultimately embraced a “burn it down” approach to governance. The insurgent left within the Democratic coalition remains focused on conventional liberal issues like human rights, affordability, and taxing the wealthy. New, animating issues for voters — such as ending military funding for Israel and harsher regulation of data centers — still do not see voters anywhere close to the Tea Party’s reactionary fervor to remake, or remove, much of the U.S. government. Democratic voters — and the candidates they elect — may find that current leadership is not fit for their objectives, but replacing a few key stakeholders is a different dynamic from the Tea Party’s anathema towards any Republican interested in “normal” governance.

Tea Partiers really did hold an extreme distrust of the Republican Party, or at the very least its politicians, who were understood to be a part of — rather than the enemies of — “the system.” Some of the Tea Party’s strongest boosters were, yes, “wealthy kingmakers and ultra-right-wing organizations” seeking to convert energized grievances of the Republican base into a new policy platform refusing even nominal compromises with Democratic opponents. But there was also a real, grassroots frustration with fallout from the financial crisis — which, even though it had taken place during the Bush years, became a generalized antipathy towards Obama, immigrants, and the political “system.” Even as Tea Party voters demonized the Republican establishment, that very establishment — including wealthy donors to the Republican Party and the Party’s leadership — harnessed their fury toward its own end of grinding........

© Talking Points Memo