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Establishment Dems Stave Off the Left in Key California Congressional Primaries

State Senator Scott Weiner and Rep. Jimmy Gomez easily advanced ahead of challengers who called out their positions on Israel.

With many votes still to be counted in California and little certainty in most of Tuesday’s closest-watched primary elections, one early pattern is taking shape: Progressive candidates for Congress across the state are failing to top their more moderate Democratic opponents. 

In the race for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco, the YIMBY State Senator Scott Wiener secured a comfortable victory with more than 40% of the vote, according to the Associated Press, which made the early call. Local politician Connie Chan earned the second spot, according to the AP, leaving Saikat Chakrabarti, a prominent figure in national progressive politics, off the general election ballot in November.

In Los Angeles, AIPAC-backed incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez easily won a spot on the November ballot, according to a call from the AP. Despite the election day revelation of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Gomez fended off a challenge from the progressive insurgent Angela Gonzales-Torres by a wide margin. Results are still coming in, but Gonzales-Torres appears likely to face off against Gomez again in the general election thanks to California’s “jungle primary” system, in which the top two candidates move on to a runoff.

Meanwhile in Sacramento, longtime establishment Democrat Rep. Doris Matsui is currently leading progressive city council member Mai Vang, though that race remains too close to call. 

In these three solidly blue districts, each race has been viewed as part of a wider battle for control between a Democratic establishment seen as faltering in the face of the second Trump administration and a progressive wing that has grown in influence in the decade since the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — and argues the establishment strategy gave rise to Trump in the first place.

Chakrabarti, Gonzales-Torres and Vang all had the backing of Justice Democrats, a group that supports progressive challengers in primary elections and helped elect members of the Squad in Congress. Earlier in the evening, Justice Democrats notched a victory when Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former combat surgeon who volunteered in Gaza and faced a barrage of attacks that often peddled in Islamophobic tropes, comfortably beat a crowded field of Democrats in New Jersey.

Justice Democrats had hoped to elevate Chakrabarti, one of its co-founders, to Congress. After earning his fortune at the tech firm Stripe, the centimillionaire worked on Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, co-founded Justice Democrats, and became chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Chakrabarti grew to become an influential activist in progressive politics, but he was often a divisive figure, known for riling Democrats online and antagonizing Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who he hoped to succeed. Pelosi, who won her last reelection with 82 percent of the vote in her district, ultimately endorsed Chan, a San Francisco Board of Supervisors member. When the AP called the race for Chan, she held a lead of 13% over Chakrabarti.

Chakrabarti, Chan and Wiener all jockeyed to be seen as the progressive in........

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