As tensions simmered between the Democratic establishment and progressive populists during the 2018 primary season, members of the establishment wing largely refrained from fueling the fire in their public comments. To be sure, the party’s official campaign arm played hard in several primaries to beat back insurgents it deemed less electable, and won most of those battles. But public disparagement of the party’s left-most voters — voters Democrats need to show up in November — has been scant.

Then roared New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Spiking the ball at a press conference one day after a landslide primary victory over actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo condescendingly said of his cocky leftist online critics: “I tweet you, you tweet me and between the two of us we think we have a wave, [when] we’re not even a ripple.”

Going out of his way to provoke the socialist brigades, he referred to results from the state’s June congressional primaries, which included the upset win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Bronx-Queens 14th District, as a low-turnout, over-interpreted “fluke”; in contrast, his high-turnout 30-point margin of victory was “a revolution.”

He praised “New York Democrats” as Donald Trump might praise West Virginia Republicans: “hard-working men and women [who] have real problems and they need real help in life,” unlike those “ivory tower academics” and “pontificators” who “live in the abstract or the theoretical.”

And Cuomo kept returning to his brand of progressive governance: “You cannot have the word ‘progressive’ without the word ‘progress.’ … I’m not a socialist … but I am progressive, and I delivered progressive results [in] the most progressive state in the United States of America.” He cited his enactment of mandatory family leave and a $15 minimum wage as examples of “real life progressive solutions” (while leaving out the less progressive elements of his record, such as his tax cuts and spending caps).

If that sounds to you like the outlines of a 2020 campaign speech, you’re not alone. A reporter at the presser noted there was a lot of “national politics talk” in his remarks, and asked if Cuomo were re-elected, would he remain governor “for four years.” While Cuomo flatly ruled out a presidential run last month, after his primary win he gave a more cryptic response.

It is odd, to say the least, for a test run of a campaign speech to brazenly antagonize a growing faction of Democratic primary voters. But Cuomo may believe, based on his results, that he has a better grasp of who actually composes the party’s base than some of his potential 2020 opponents.

Cuomo was not alone in delivering a lecture to the anti-establishment wing. A week prior, Barack Obama gave a midterm election campaign speech that was mostly noted for his harsh words aimed at Donald Trump, and warm words for “Medicare for all.” But Obama wasn’t necessarily trying to elevate the ideologically pure socialist faction of the party. He also had stern words for those who criticize pragmatists as insufficiently progressive:

Making democracy work means holding on to our principles. … It also means appreciating that progress does not happen all at once. … And let me tell you something, particularly young people here: ‘Better’ is good. … The Civil Rights Act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social Security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people. Do not let people tell you the fight’s not worth it because you won’t get everything that you want.

So if Obama was embracing the concept of “Medicare for all,” he certainly was not arguing that Democrats should disregard any progress short of that goal, such as his own Affordable Care Act.

The conciliatory Obama has his eye on party unity, trying to keep young idealists in the Democratic fold for 2018 and discouraging their tendency to fire at grizzled party veterans more open to compromise. The pugnacious Cuomo appears to be gearing up for a chaotic 2020 presidential primary fight that will likely be anything but unifying.

And Cuomo may not have the pragmatist niche all to himself. In recent weeks, several non-socialists speculated to be considering a presidential run include billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, former Massachusetts Gov. and Bain Capital managing director Deval Patrick, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Maryland Rep. (and wealthy businessman) John Delaney is already running. And if former Vice President Joe Biden runs, he would be a formidable representative of the Democratic establishment.

It may well be that all of these people are delusional if they think they can win a Democratic nomination over the likes of lefty firebrand Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, or over fresher faces seeking to build ties to the left such as Sens. Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker -- and, yes, Michael Avenatti.

But Cuomo’s victory, and defiant victory lap, may send a signal to members of the party’s pragmatist wing that nothing should be assumed about the primary electorate, and in turn, that nothing should dissuade them from jumping into the race.