Like Abdul El-Sayed himself, I doubt the Haley Stevens betrayal will make much difference on Tuesday. Jamelle Bouie makes a good point about Stevens failing to adjust to her primary loss to El-Sayed and possibly having a eccentric or difficult personality. But her gambit is also an example of the ways in which the politics of blackmail and punishment have become part of the factional conflict among Democrats. In 2016, Sanders supporters seemed to view Democrats as their main opponent and threatened to not vote or support Trump as a way to punish Democrats for nominating Hillary. There was also an impulse among pro-Palestinian Dems and Arab voters to punish the Democrats for Biden’s enthusiastic support of Israel’s war on Gaza. With Stevens, the shoe is on the other foot as she seeks to punish El-Sayed ignoring her pro-Israel demands.
But there’s a difference. Sanders-style progressives and pro-Palestinian opponents of Israel are ascending factions within the U.S. Democratic Party while the “moderate” Democratic faction has been in steep decline since 2010. There are only ten moderate Blue Dogs Democrats left in the House, prominent moderates like Jared Golden of Maine have decided not to run again while Seth Moulton of MA lost a primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey. Since 2016, moderates have lost out as Democratic voters demand more aggression and decisiveness from officeholders. What keeps moderate Democrats in the public eye is a combination of the money that over-funds moderate Dems and media insistence on viewing the party in terms of conflicts between moderates and Sanders-style progressives.
A much more important, although underreported, division in the Democratic Party has been between Black voters and progressives. But that division has been softening over the last five years. Joe Biden adapted many ideas from the progressive left for his big swing at climate policy while AOC has devoted much of her 2026 campaigning to outreach to the Black communities in the South as well as the North. Moderates like Sinema, Fetterman, and Stevens have abandoned the Democratic Party but they don’t matter nearly as much as they think.
