Democrats have long been terrified that the Sanders-Clinton slugfest of 2016 would set off a prolonged civil war in the party, forcing incumbents to fight off primary challengers from the left in Senate and gubernatorial races.

It hasn’t happened.


In a surprising reversal of the post-2008 dynamic — when Republicans were shut out of power, then saw a raft of tea party primary challengers take on their incumbents — Democrats have largely been spared of that predicament. Instead, it’s Republican incumbents yet again facing heat from the right, as arch-conservative Roy Moore’s defeat of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) this week emphatically showed.

“What Democrats right now care about more than anything is winning,” veteran Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock said of divisive Democratic primaries. “I don’t think the ultra-progressives have abandoned their principles — not at all — but I think they looked at the challenge and said, ‘This is not the right place.’”

Most filing deadlines are still months away, so insurgents who aren't currently on the radar could still launch late challenges. Primary fights could also still turn uncomfortable in a range of low-profile House races.

But the relative peace on the left wasn’t preordained — the divisiveness of last year’s presidential primary was widely expected to manifest again in 2018 statewide elections. Yet with next year’s Senate and gubernatorial races shaping up, it’s Democrats whose sighs of relief are echoing around the country.

Democrats have escaped the brunt of their own party’s populist fury largely because they’re heading into the midterms in a defensive crouch, with 10 of their incumbent senators on the ballot in states that voted for Donald Trump. So instead of going after their own senators, progressive activists are focused on gaining Republican-held seats in the House.

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“There’s some reluctance to put a lot of time into [unseating Democrats], versus [building] a more progressive Congress overall,” said former Communications Workers of America union President Larry Cohen, a top Bernie Sanders adviser who now chairs the board of the Our Revolution political group that was spawned from the senator’s 2016 presidential campaign. “There’s going to be a lot more activity where it’s possible to change the makeup of the Congress.”

Not all statewide Democratic incumbents are home free: Actress Cynthia Nixon has been encouraged to mount a long-shot challenge against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the left next year — much like the one he fended off in 2014. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has suggested he may take on first-term Gov. Gina Raimondo, criticizing her for not being sufficiently progressive on an array of issues.

And in California, fourth-term Sen. Dianne Feinstein has faced fury from the left for not challenging Trump more aggressively. State Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, who made the rounds in Washington this month, and liberal activist Joe Sanberg have gained notice as potential challengers.

Yet those potential fights remain long shots, and the one primary challenge that is already underway — from Hawaii Rep. Colleen Hanabusa against Gov. David Ige — is based more around his perceived unpopularity than a progressive insurgency. Meanwhile, liberal challenges to Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri have so far failed to gain traction.

The most successful GOP primary challenges in 2010 were against relatively moderate, entrenched incumbents in conservative states. In contrast, none of the many Democratic senators running in liberal states in 2018 — such as Delaware’s Tom Carper, Maryland’s Ben Cardin, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, or Washington’s Maria Cantwell — have seen any reason to sweat their own positions.

This wasn’t always the likeliest development: in the early days after Trump’s victory, a handful of activists who supported Sanders in 2016 created new efforts specifically designed to oust incumbents. But 10 months later, little has come of those pushes, leading many Democratic operatives working on statewide races to now assume those challenges won’t come at all.

That Democratic relief stands in sharp contrast to the Republican fears of another round of primaries much like the ones they fought through in 2010, after they were shut out of power in Washington. That year, Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah was ousted by Mike Lee, a tea party challenger, and Rep. Mike Castle was defeated in a Senate primary. Incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana was then pushed out in 2012. (Conservative Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas also faced a primary from the left in 2010, but she won, while the only Democratic senator ousted in a primary was party-switching Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.)

After Strange’s defeat, vulnerable Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada are facing down Trump-friendly primary opponents coming at them from the right. And people aligned with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon have talked about taking on Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, too. Another potential target, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, announced his retirement last week.

But on the other side, with so much of the party’s grass-roots money flowing to anti-Trump efforts and candidates, there’s so far no organized effort to funnel campaign cash or political support to potential Democratic challengers.

And since so much of the party’s energy is organized around opposing Trump and the Republican Congress, even more centrist Democrats have occasionally escaped liberal fury by loudly opposing the GOP. Not one of the five Democratic senators running for reelection in a state Trump carried by double digits even flirted with voting for any of the attempted Republican health care repeal measures this year, for example.

“Because of Donald Trump, the last two years have allowed these people to take positions that are very much on the side of progressives,” said Pollock. They “take positions that the progressives embrace, that [are politically] beneficial even in states Trump won by 40 points.”

Still, messy Democratic primaries are still expected in several House districts where vulnerable Republicans are running for reelection. One conservative Democratic House member — Illinois’ Dan Lipinski — already faces a primary fight.

That’s reason enough for establishment-oriented and moderate Democrats to avoid complacency, insisted a handful of party operatives.

“The Sanders campaign proved — from the huge crowds he got, the enthusiasm, the bumper stickers, that he represents an anti-establishment progressive reality in the Democratic Party,” said his short-lived 2016 primary foe Chafee. “I am thinking along those lines.”

