Democrats are presently projected to win back the House of Representatives as a result of the November 2026 midterm election. Democrats must take precautions to prevent the snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. Several elections could make this a possibility. One example is the race for the 12th congressional district in New Jersey to replace the retiring congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. While Democrats are not in danger of losing the seat, given its overwhelming democratic makeup, the candidate who will most certainly win will undoubtedly become the poster child for the Republican Party. Adam Hamaway, who won the Democratic primary with 27% of the vote, will face Republican Greg Mele. Hamaway will have to confront criticism from Republicans for his defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the blind sheik “who was convicted on terrorism and seditious conspiracy charges, and whose followers conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.” While his Democratic opponents stayed away from the issue, the democratic Mayor of Plainfield Adrian Mapp, called Hamaway “a radical extremist.”

Most likely, the debacle in the Maine Democratic primary over the sexual allegations against former candidate Graham Platner has made it harder for Democrats to win back the senate. The Democratic Socialists of America have had some impressive victories but their propensity to tear down party leaders may bring problems as well. Darializa Avila Chevalier who beat the incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the primary, is running to represent the 13th congressional district of NYC has described former president Barack Obama as “evil” and made expletive deleted comments about Kamala Harris and former president Joe Biden. She has also criticized men involved in interracial relationships when she wrote on X “black men, Arab men fetishizing ugly, colonizer women.” She has since terminated her X account, claiming she wanted to focus on her PHD. Pundits project she more than likely will win her race. Nonetheless, her comments will be used as proof of an extreme ideology. (attempts by the writer to contact DSA for a response have been unsuccessful.) While several DSA candidates have an allegiance to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, his seemingly dismissal of the importance of older Black voters in the south during the 2016 Democratic primary season cost him the nomination. Sanders was even booed by Black women at the 2019 She the People presidential forum, at the University of Houston Texas. When he was asked what he would do for Black women, his answer that he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King was seen by many as out of touch and condescending. DSA has done well, but they remain a microcosm of the larger democrat party. Nonetheless, the idea and utility of socialism has been around for a long time. Eugene Debs ran as a socialist for president from a jail house and received almost one million votes. In 1924, Republican Fiorella LaGuardia ran on the socialist ticket to get re-elected to the House of Representatives. From an historical perspective, the term socialism was used during Reconstruction by Southern conservatives who used the term to label public education, taxation for public services, and Reconstruction governments as forms of “socialism” or “communism” in attacks on policies that benefited newly freed Black Americans. The Democrats have a huge opportunity but risk it through actions which may be seen as more performative than righteous. They have the support of a large segment of the voting public in referring to Gaza as a genocide. The overall public agrees that the events of October 7th were horrific as well. Perhaps they should take a page from Rahm Emmanuel’s speech on creating a new relationship with Israel when he said “your government is complicit in the horror now being inflicted on innocent families in the West Bank. That undermines your international legitimacy at a time when you can least afford it.” As Republicans, who according to an April 2026 Pew Research poll have a 55% disapproval rating, the fact is that Americans support social programs even as they reject the word socialism. America is a capitalist nation that uses aspects of socialism as a mediating factor particularly in the area of health, retirement and education. Programs such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid receive high approval ratings. Whether from Franklin Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy who in his 1961 inaugural address said “if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, they cannot save the few who are rich” socialist policies have been part of the American political landscape. Hours after his address, Kennedy, through an executive order increased food distribution programs for people in poverty. In keeping with his comments, he also created USAID in 1961.