It’s easy to be hyper­bol­ic about Ben Jeal­ous’ vic­to­ry in Maryland’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic guber­na­to­r­i­al primary.

Jealous’ win offers a glimpse of how progressives might translate party-shaping power into concrete political power.

Last win­ter, Moth­er Jones called it maybe ​“the most impor­tant elec­tion of 2018.” In truth, it isn’t even the most impor­tant race that Ben Jeal­ous, the win­ner, will com­pete in this year. That will take place in Novem­ber, when Jeal­ous faces the incum­bent Repub­li­can, Lar­ry Hogan, whose approval num­bers are in the low 70s even though Mary­land is a heav­i­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic state.

But the excite­ment around the Jeal­ous can­di­da­cy is under­stand­able. We are a lit­tle past the mid­point of the pri­ma­ry sea­son, and the media nar­ra­tive has coa­lesced around the idea that pro­gres­sives have suc­ceed­ed in mov­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty left, but not in actu­al­ly win­ning primaries.

Jeal­ous’ win over Prince George’s Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Rush­ern Bak­er doesn’t only under­cut that nar­ra­tive. It also offers a glimpse of how pro­gres­sives might trans­late par­ty-shap­ing pow­er into con­crete polit­i­cal power.

It’s not just that Jeal­ous — for­mer pres­i­dent of the NAACP — has a strik­ing­ly pro­gres­sive plat­form, though that’s true. His plan for crim­i­nal-jus­tice reform, for exam­ple, is a 26-page doc­u­ment that goes way beyond the scope and depth of typ­i­cal plat­form boil­er­plate. It has elab­o­rate sec­tions on top­ics like ​“reduc­ing the incar­cer­a­tion of women by address­ing the unique roles played by vic­tim­iza­tion, care­giv­ing, race, and pover­ty.” It notes that Jeal­ous ​“will expand access to ade­quate men­tal health and addic­tion ser­vices by fund­ing com­mu­ni­ty treat­ment cen­ters as an alter­na­tive to incar­cer­a­tion,” and calls for legal­iz­ing mar­i­jua­na and end­ing cash bail. On health­care, Jeal­ous has called for insti­tut­ing a state-lev­el Medicare for all sys­tem, sim­i­lar to Bernie Sanders’ nation­al sin­gle-pay­er plan.

What’s notable about the Jeal­ous cam­paign is the way he is using this vision, and the tra­di­tion­al and emerg­ing machin­ery of pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics, to ener­gize and expand the Demo­c­ra­t­ic coali­tion in a way that could change the game in 2020 and beyond.

His list of endorse­ments, for exam­ple, includes some of the key play­ers in the bur­geon­ing pro­gres­sive elec­toral infra­struc­ture — People’s Action, Our Rev­o­lu­tion, and Jus­tice Democ­rats for exam­ple — as well as broad union sup­port, includ­ing endorse­ments by teach­ers’ and postal work­ers’ unions, Nation­al Nurs­es Unit­ed, and the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tion­al Union. He has also been backed by Sanders him­self, who made mul­ti­ple appear­ances with Jeal­ous on the cam­paign trail.

As the Wash­ing­ton Post recent­ly not­ed, the Jeal­ous cam­paign had three field orga­niz­ers who coor­di­nat­ed a team of more than 1,000 vol­un­teers, ​“rely­ing heav­i­ly on unions to mobi­lize their mem­bers,” and tar­get­ing black and Lati­no voters.

Much of this is nuts and bolts Demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics, or used to be. What’s new and promis­ing is the bring­ing togeth­er of a rad­i­cal­ly pro­gres­sive plat­form with boots-on-the-ground sup­port from a diverse coali­tion. It includes new and tra­di­tion­al elec­toral infra­struc­ture, a grass­roots base of vol­un­teers, and a plan to reach out to under­rep­re­sent­ed minori­ties who tend vote at low­er rates than the gen­er­al population.

That com­bi­na­tion helped Jeal­ous make up ground quick­ly on Bak­er, the fron­trun­ner for much of the race. As recent­ly as Feb­ru­ary, Bak­er had near­ly dou­ble the sup­port of Jeal­ous in polling — 26 per­cent to 14 per­cent. Bak­er had endorse­ments from much of the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment and, until Jeal­ous’ surge through the spring, led his near­est chal­lenger by more than 10 points.

Bak­er took pro­gres­sive posi­tions on some key issues — a $15 min­i­mum wage and free col­lege, notably — but didn’t sup­port Medicare for all. But the main dif­fer­ence between the can­di­dates didn’t involve a par­tic­u­lar pol­i­cy. It was more about the scope of their vision and the con­vic­tion behind it.

As the Bal­ti­more Sun not­ed in its endorse­ment of Jeal­ous, ​“we looked for the can­di­date who is best able to artic­u­late a cohe­sive pro­gres­sive vision to con­trast with Mr. Hogan’s cen­ter-right poli­cies so that vot­ers can send a clear mes­sage in Novem­ber about the direc­tion they want the state to take, and we looked for the can­di­date who would best be able to gov­ern if he or she wins.”

A com­mon com­plaint about the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, espe­cial­ly in the Trump era, has been that it offers plen­ty of crit­i­cism but has few solu­tions. The Jeal­ous cam­paign, with his com­pre­hen­sive vision of where he wants to take Mary­land, is a force­ful rejec­tion of that notion. He shows that party’s pro­gres­sive wing, at least, has plen­ty of pol­i­cy ideas — bold, ambi­tious, detailed ones.

More than that, though, the Jeal­ous cam­paign is evi­dence that hav­ing an ambi­tious agen­da — and being equal­ly ambi­tious in artic­u­lat­ing it — is the only way to build a move­ment that can push that agen­da through. This is the heart of the ongo­ing strug­gle for the soul of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, which has tepid move­ment sup­port because so often the par­ty seems to have lost its soul, or sold it.

The last two years have shown that cre­at­ing fun­da­men­tal change will be a long game. Plen­ty of pro­gres­sives have lost, and plen­ty will lose, their cam­paigns. Yet some­times things come togeth­er in a way that hints at the pos­si­bil­i­ties of some­thing stir­ring. Hyper­bole aside, the Jeal­ous cam­paign is one of those moments.

Democ­rats should take note.