Far-Left Ain't Right: Analyzing the Lack of Success of Bernie Sanders-Inspired PACs
Since 2016, we've seen a prevailing narrative that the Democrats are in disarray. With the Democratic Party presidential primary currently without a clear frontrunner, there has been much discussion about the need for whoever the nominee is to take on progressive policies that would connect with the far-left wing of the party. But the numbers don't bear that out. Specifically, over the past three years, we've seen three separate PACs emerge in the wake of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run. Each of these PACs has run on the idea of pushing the Democratic Party left with its candidates and its policies. Rather than seeing breakthroughs; however, what we've seen has been numerous far-left candidates lose primaries to more moderate candidates and general elections to Republicans. If we are to truly understand today's Democratic Party, we have to take a deep look at these types of candidates and ask the question of why they haven't been more successful. When we do that, we see that despite sporadic success stories, today's Democratic Party is not in alignment with the far-left ideology of Bernie Sanders and those PACs running on his vision. Let's take a look at the three PACs formed in the wake of Bernie Sander's 2016 presidential run to see why this is the case:
Bernie's Brainchild: Our Revolution
Our Revolution is a 501(c)4 political action committee formed in the wake of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run. The organization officially formed on August 24, 2016, and its first Board included prominent members of Sanders' presidential campaign including Larry Cohen as chairman, Nina Turner as president, and Huck Gutman, who had been Sanders' former Chief of Staff. The organization immediately went to war with the Democratic "establishment" as its first endorsement was for Tim Canova, who was challenging incumbent and former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in Florida. Canova preceded to lose the primary by 13 points and then, in true Bernie Sanders-fashion, cast doubt over the election result by implying that there may have been vote manipulation. In 2018, Our Revolution endorsed a total of 40 Senate, Congressional, and statewide office-seekers with only 10 of those candidates winning for a winning percentage of 25%. Breaking down those that won, not a single candidate won in a swing district and not a single candidate flipped a seat from red to blue.
In addition to its mediocre win percentage, Our Revolution has been marred in controversy. On March 22nd, 2019 it was announced that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would no longer do business with firms that primaried incumbent Democrats. In May of 2019, Politico described internal chaos within the organization including concerns over Nina Tuner's leadership, a refusal to commit to working on Latino issues, charges of nepotism, and decreased fundraising totals. Most recently in January of 2020, watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint with the FEC regarding Our Revolution, claiming that the organization was accepting excessive donations. The complaint alleged that there was illegal coordination going on between Our Revolution and Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, a type of coordination illegal by Federal Election Committee law. With Sanders himself consistently saying his campaign is not funded by millionaires, this questionable connection seems to cast doubt on the income level of Our Revolution's, and by proxy, Bernie Sanders' donor base.
AOC's Lifeline: Justice Democrats
While Nina Tuner went one way, former Sanders staffers Saikat Chakrabarti and Zack Exley went another. Combined with Cenk Uygur and Kyle Kulinski of The Young Turks, the four men went on to launch Justice Democrats, a 501(c)4 political action committee with the intent of rebuilding the Democratic Party from scratch in January of 2017. Like Our Revolution, Justice Democrats ran numerous far-left candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, but they had even less success. In total, the Justice Democrats won just 7 of 79 races, for a dismal 9% win percentage. Of those 7 wins, not a single win was in a swing district and all winners were in a D+12 district or higher. Despite this abysmal win percentage, the Justice Democrats did make headlines by electing members of "the squad" including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar. Despite these four making all the headlines, the Justice Democrats as a whole have failed to translate their momentary energy into sustainable successes in contested elections.
Like Our Revolution, the Justice Democrats also faced internal conflict. In December of 2017, previous sexist writings of then-president Cenk Uygur came to light, forcing the Justice Democrats to oust their founder. Kyle Kulinski then resigned in a showing of solidarity. Uygur, in announcing his candidacy for California's 25th congressional district, has said he will not run as a Justice Democrat. There also was controversy around the election of Ocasio-Cortez, who was listed as a Board member of Justice Democrats in 2018 and was then immediately de-listed after her primary victory. Ocasio-Cortez then selected Saikat Chakrabarti as her chief of staff, one of the founders of the Justice Democrats. In April of 2019, it was reported that Chakrabarti's consulting firm collected over $600,000 from the Justice Democrats during the primary, demonstrating a clear conflict of interest and drawing national attention to the Justice Democrats' interwoven relationship with Ocasio-Cortez. Chakrabarti then left his role in August of 2019, four months after news of the story broke.
Justice Democrats' Little Brother: Brand New Congress
The third of the unholy triumvirate of Bernie-backed PACs is Brand New Congress, a 501(c)4 formed in April of 2016, shortly after Sanders was officially eliminated from the Democratic primary. Brand New Congress was formed by Saikat Chakrabarti, Zack Exley, Alexandra Rojas, and Corbin Trent, all four of whom were also involved in the founding of the Justice Democrats. Unsurprisingly, Brand New Congress would team up with Justice Democrats in March of 2017 and they would endorse a total of 30 candidates during the 2018 midterm elections. Unfortunately for Brand New Congress, they had an even worse success rate than both Our Revolution and the Justice Democrats. In fact, the only candidate they endorsed that won was a co-endorsement with the Justice Democrats for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, giving them a 3% success rate. In fact, no candidate other than Ocasio-Cortez got more than 43% in their general elections, showing Brand New Congress to have little to no influence in the current political landscape.
What these three PACs should show us is that Bernie Sanders' revolution just ain't happening. Running far-left candidates in moderate districts may feel good but it doesn't produce positive results. It is telling that all three of these groups refused to endorse more moderate Democrats like Lucy McBath in Georgia, Ralph Northam in Virginia, or Doug Jones in Alabama, despite the fact that each of these three candidates was a perfect fit for their constituency. But for these three PACs, it's never been about winning, but instead has been about building the Bernie brand. They'd rather run someone all-in on the Green New Deal than a moderate who better fits his or her own home district. These PACs don't understand that building a movement takes time and effort and is not something that can be suddenly forced on the American public all at once. It takes time and organizing to do that, and as we've seen with Bernie Sanders' political career, that is something that he himself has never been willing to do.
At the end of the day, these three PACs will continue to endorse far-left candidates and, as we've already seen, they will continue to lose. Their vision of America is not one shared by the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party. In the 60 closest House races in 2018, 72% of Democratic winners did not support Medicare-For-All, a clear signal that the success of those midterms was due to support for incremental, rather than explosive, healthcare improvements. This is why it is critical that the Democratic Party has a nominee in 2020 who does not have extreme views on the issues. Sure, he or she will lose the endorsement of the Bernie PACs but as we've seen, these PACs don't carry that much influence to begin with. In fact, it can and should be argued that not getting the endorsement of the Bernie PACs might be what ultimately enables the eventual nominee to have much more success than he or she would have had with those endorsements.
And should that candidate ultimately win, it would be a massive blow to the Bernie Sanders "revolution".
Addendum
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