The Mamdani moment and the faux war of ideas in Nevada 

In the fight between the center and the left, the center has decided that their best strategy is to try to look a lot like the left.  In Nevada, two Democratic Socialists, Shaun Navarro and Val Thomason, ran primary challenges against moderate incumbents. Their subsequent loss has been the subject of many articles about the supposed entrenchment of moderate beliefs in Nevada. It’s a lazy analysis, which assumes that local races are decided based on two equal and opposing viewpoints. The truth is much more complicated than that. 

In order to have a war of ideas, candidates must espouse different ideas. In two legislative races, AD10 and AD34, that didn’t happen. Incumbents, catching wind of the challenge headed their way, did not run on moderate viewpoints. Indeed, they adjusted their policies until they sounded like they might be Democratic Socialists themselves. Immediately upon opening incumbent Hanadi Nadeem’s website, you will be met with a banner that says “put people over profits”, a favorite progressive slogan that was also used by challenger, Shaun Navarro. Venise Karris wrote that she would “lower housing costs by taking on greedy landlords” while her opponent Val Thomason ran on capping rent increases.

If moderates genuinely believe that Nevadans prefer moderate ideals, then why aren’t they running as moderates? The reality is moderate policies do not inspire or mobilize voters. Moderates have to play pretend progressive to appease the Democratic base, while keeping policies vague enough to simultaneously appease their corporate donors. 

For several months, incumbents ran ads that listed their support for policies that their challengers were running on. The ads were vague and did not claim outright that they would support universal childcare or capping rent prices. Instead, they relied on progressive-sounding platitudes without concrete policies. They pledged to bring down costs and make housing and childcare affordable again, without outlining how they would achieve these goals. Their mailers and door literature did not oppose progressive values, but instead they adjusted their messaging to match popular progressive stances.  

The film bill did not become a subject of discussion in either AD10 or AD34. While both incumbents voted in favor of the giant tax handout to corporations, neither one of them felt it necessary to take credit for that vote. This was an intelligent maneuver from incumbents, as other races have shown the film bill is unpopular with voters, however, it certainly blows a giant hole into the moderate vs progressive narrative. How can the left be at war with the center’s ideas when they are pretending to support our ideas?

Did voters in AD10 and AD34 reject socialist ideas then, choosing instead to back the more legitimate faux progressives? That is unlikely, since incumbents did not refer to their primary challengers as socialists, nor did they attack their ideas; instead they referred to them as secret conservatives. In the most circulated negative ad against Val Thomason, incumbent democrats put a fake MAGA hat on her head and accused her of similarities to Donald Trump – an attack they also used in her 2024 bid for AD10.

In door conversations, voters revealed to us that Karris’s canvassers were not referring to Thomason as a scary socialist, but as a DINO, a conservative pretending to be Democratic. 

Amidst a national conversation about the fight between the left and the center, Nevada moderates refused to participate openly in that fight. Perhaps one day, moderates will have the courage to run on their beliefs, but for now they are still getting by pretending to be us.

Voters won’t be swayed by empty rhetoric for long. Progressives scored wins in a number of open races, including Alex Pereszlenyi in AD29. Nationally, DSA has won 4 congressional campaigns this season so far, including the ousting of a 30 year incumbent in Colorado by DSA member Melat Kiros. The Democratic base is feeling increasingly positive about Democratic Socialism, viewing DSA candidates as the fighters they’ve been looking for. Our movement is growing: DSA has 120,000 members across the country, with Las Vegas DSA having recently crossed 700 members. Our wins here in Nevada are on the horizon.