Democrats adopting the socialist term may distract voters from the issues these candidates support

Political observers are predicting a big year for Democrats in congressional elections. This is expected given the dynamics of midterm loss, where the president’s party loses seats in Congress in non-presidential election years. This has been the pattern in all but two elections going back to 1938. Common explanations for midterm loss center on how the frustration from losing the presidential election fires up out-party partisans and invites many ambitious congressional candidates. 

This energy is positive for mobilization but can encourage newer candidates to blame their party’s establishment for not standing up to the other party’s president. For example, in 1974, the so-called “Watergate baby” Democrats criticized their own party leaders lack of post-Watergate reforms. In 2010, Tea Party Republicans ran against Republican incumbents for not stopping the Affordable Care Act and Great Recession regulatory reforms.

In 2026, Democratic Socialists accuse establishment Democrats of not doing enough to halt President Donald Trump.

While similar to previous midterm elections, this year’s dynamic could end up differing because of the adoption of the historically loaded “socialism” term. Academically, the socialism term is misplaced in theory and in practice, but the pressing problem for this year’s election is that the term could distract from the issues that the Democratic Socialists are championing.  

As far as political theory, using the term socialism is off. No one running for office for the Democrats in 2026 is an actual socialist, which by definition is when the people, through government rather than the private sector, own the means of production. These candidates also do not resemble the similarly named European Social Democrats due to our distinct American political history.

Our historical experience has created different political values than other democracies where socialism emerged. The Declaration of Independence borrowed directly from John Locke’s argument that a legitimate government would not take away any individual’s right to life, liberty, or property without due process. This made the U.S. a liberal democracy, which is not leftist, but rather a governing system that limits government to protect liberties in society and the marketplace. 

This predates the socialist movement that democratized most European social democracies with the right to vote for the working class and a focus on the common good being superior to individual rights. Our Constitution highlights negative rights, those that the government cannot take away but does not define many rights the government must provide its citizens. In contrast, due to social democratic ideals, other democracies emphasize positive rights, or those that the government must provide people the common good like universal rights to work, leisure, environmental equality, gender equity, and social welfare. 

As a result, American Democratic Socialists might push for marginally higher taxes and regulation compared to Republicans, but they are not emphasizing positive rights or policies that are central to European constitutional democracies like mandating a 32-hour work week or that private-sector companies have to provide weeks of paid vacation and paid maternal and paternal leave. American Democratic Socialist are not calling for a massive overhaul of the tax code that would match European democracies, where on average over 40% of the overall economy is taxed, compared to 25% in the US.  

Americans often do not recognize how commonly held our admiration of our liberal democracy is. American exceptionalism scholars have written about our confined, shared belief system throughout our history. Alexis de Tocqueville loved American democracy but was shocked at how narrow American political thought and debate were in our very early republic. Philip Converse argued that Americans do not have any real divides in our ideological beliefs, but rather made up “folk ideologies.” 

Other scholars like Louis Hartz and Richard Hofstadter have pointed to the danger of our collective liberal tradition because we do not recognize that views slightly out of the norm are not drastic threats to our democracy. It makes us prone to overreactions or paranoia like McCarthyism and the red scare.  

Consequently, if the past patterns hold, the self-named Democratic Socialists may set off unwarranted panic among some who fear they are challenging the American way of life even if their positions are not far from the mainstream. 

How would they govern?

This is not just mistaken political theory, in practice Democratic Socialists would likely not govern that dramatically different from establishment Democrats. The person most associated with the Democratic Socialists is U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed many Democratic Socialist candidates. Sanders’ brand has been clear: establishment Democrats act too much like Republicans. But how different is Sanders’ behavior than other Democrats? 

Congressional Quarterly’s 2024 Senate party unity scores – the percentage of times each Senator voted in agreement with their party when a majority of the other party voted in the opposite direction – are instructive because it was the last time Democrats controlled the Senate agenda. The average Democratic Senator had a party unity score of 98.5%. Bernie Sander’s party unity was 93%. This is not a massive chasm between Democratic Socialists and Democrats. 

This is not to say that Democratic Socialists would not push new issues relative to other Democrats. It’s just that by adopting the socialist term, it may distract voters from the issues these candidates advocate. Voters will likely see more threatening name-calling ads about Marxism or communism than substantive issue positions. The paradox to this likely backlash is that the U.S. has moved rightward on taxation, redistribution, and regulation in recent decades but if these candidates are caricatured, the threat will be seen as shifting too far to the left and the important issues they raise will be ignored.   

For example, many of the Democratic Socialists have taken distinct positions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue compared to many mainstream Democrats. This is a needed debate following October 7, 2023m and the response in Gaza and Lebanon, especially when there are accusations of antisemitism or Islamophobia in debates on the topic within both parties. We will not have this national discussion if we are calling each other Marxists and fascists.

Democratic Socialists also emphasize policies to address growing inequality in American society, which fuels resentment among voters and increases incivility and polarization in American politics according to the political science literature. These and other thorny issues deserve a full debate this year but may not emerge out of the reflexive name-calling and negative political environment we are in.