>> What is the future of the Democratic Party?

That's the question plaguing out in primary elections across the country as the party establishment faces a growing challenge from the left candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America have won primaries in Pennsylvania, New York, Colorado and Michigan potentially signaling a shift among the Democratic base that winning streak ended last night in Wisconsin were socialist candidate Francesca, Hong narrowly lost her bid for governor to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

>> Over the past few months, you've heard a lot of people trying to find this election as a battle between the left and the center between progressives and the establishment between insiders and outsiders.

That narrative misses the entire point of what we're doing.

We may not agree on every policy.

We may not use the same labels.

But we all want safe communities.

Strong schools, affordable health care, good paying jobs and a brighter future for all of our children.

>> Joining us to hash it all out, our PGA Greco, a partner at the strategy Group.

That's Democratic political consultancy headquartered here in Chicago.

He's currently serving as a consultant on the probably campaign.

Sean Duffy, co-chair of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

And Jason Desanto, a political speechwriter debate strategist and professor at Northwestern University's School of Law.

Welcome Back, Everybody.

Good to see lots to talk about.

So I want to start Pete with yesterday's Democratic primary, of course, for Wisconsin governor, most polls have a democratic socialist.

Francesca, Hong leading by double digits.

But in a major upset, as we know now, you know, she lost to David Crowley.

So which probably say congrats to you as Just a few 1000 votes when you think the biggest takeaways from yesterday's yesterday's result, I think what Democrats want in Wisconsin, some is going to stand up >> to Donald Trump and actually win to the governor's race in Wisconsin more than just what happens in that state.

Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee is an election deny or and if you were governor, what do you think?

What happened to those ballots that always get counted late evening in the night in Milwaukee, he would have them tried to throw out.

So this was not only kind of destroy public education and health care in Wisconsin.

But he could have been that up with cost us the presidential race in 2028, Francesca hung.

Why do you think it that voters voters saw that that they saw that if she wins a Republican wins in November?

Well, I think the big thing was the Republican Party spent 4 million dollars to promote Francesca hung by attacking her too liberal.

It was clearly a ploy because the Republicans knew they could be her because she had some, you know, wanted to not just abolish the police, but about Thanksgiving.

lot of things that just don't make sense to even mainstream Democratic primary burger swing voters are 9 MAGA Republican.

So there was a disaster waiting to happen and people saw for what it was shown.

You know, I think what's extraordinary about the election yesterday is that a few months ago outside of Wisconsin, very few people knew about Francesca's race, her candidate, her candidacy.

And since TSA's of starting wins in June, we seen a momentum behind her campaign.

despite the fact that she was outspent more than 2 to one, despite the fact that the entire political establishment in Wisconsin of the Democrat Party behind the other candidates, she came within less than one percentage point of winning that race.

So she won over 200,000 votes in Wisconsin.

I think that's extraordinary for a Democratic socialist was mostly backed by Democrats America chapters Wisconsin that come that close.

It's really incredible in terms of electability, you know, the Republican nominee in this race as someone who's skeptical data centers, where is probably the now Democratic nominee has been much more enthusiastic about data centers.

So 75% of voters are skeptical about data centers.

So I think we're going to see November's how that's affecting plays out and what it's really like to pull an agenda, put wedding class pull forward.

Janet says data centers are good for our communities.

Jason.

I agree both of And I think actually what it illustrates is there a lot of factors at play.

And I think one of the things we've been struggling with over the last few weeks, he's trying to figure out.

>> What's actually happening with the party itself.

I think given year promote the beginning, whether it's actually moving left.

But even in what both peace peaking, Sean said, we heard about the power money both for and against candidates a way to organize against at the power of organizing the power being anti tech.

And a lot of what's powering a lot of things in these elections is being anti-establishment and also electability.

That's being Anti-Trump.

And so.

We know that something is going on in these races, but actually some things each of those are different factors and they're playing out differently.

I think in each of the races think about a look of then diagram, we've got all these different patterns that are emerging and depending on constituencies, Canada, talent, whether or not the candidates actually a strong communicator and can explain positions.

It's turning out differently in different races.

So I think it's hard to find one clear paradigm to take out of the one particular race.

It also made me think about pulling pulling his lead us astray.

>> in this instance, if it had her up by double digits and then she lost by several 1000 votes, I think does that make you sort of reframe how we're looking at the polling going into November?

It sure does at.

I mean, certainly that's been the case with the primary electorate.

But it's hard to say you can rely on any set of polling when it's been so wildly off base.

>> We don't know who's going to turn out to vote.

And I think a lot of the question about whether the Democratic Party can come together after some of these races is who can you get to turn out to vote and are you coming together and are you actually bring out everybody within your possible coalition or people going to identify themselves with one particular issue and take themselves out of that coalition.

I think that's what makes the polling dicing and it's what makes turnout dicey.

>> Pete, despite homes lost in Wisconsin, the progressive wing in the Democratic Party did not go home empty-handed because in Minnesota, the Democratic primary for U.S.

Senate, progressive Lieutenant Governor pay penny plan again.

She beat out a challenge by a more moderate Congresswoman Angie Craig, nearly 20 points.

What does that tell you?

>> Peggy Fleming plan again is is I think more of a mainstream Democrat.

Yeah, you could say shoes or more progressive than then Angie Craig.

And I think the problem there for the general election is less about where she is a logically and the fact that she so closely tied to Tim Walz and the fraud scandal there that has cost billions of dollars and has Democrats, independents and Republicans furious at the walls plan again and ministrations.

So now you're gonna have a Senate race that's really about that.

And instead you know, talking about taking away health care, which I think what Angie Craig would have run But I think Peggy Strong candidate, I think there's less of it issue there.

What we didn't want to have as a repeat of Mandela Barnes who is the progressive nominee in Wisconsin 2022. in a really key U.S.

Senate race, Tony Evers won that race by 3 points with choice Consonants.

This is a landslide.

Mandela was to laugh.

Two-week lost by 28,000 votes and that Senate seat really matters.

Now we've got a win for seat this time to make up for the fact that the left gave us Mandela Barnes gave You know, Francesca, Hong tried to give us Graham Platner in Maine and you just see week candidate after we candidate either because they're far too left.

Are there bad communicator because nobody decided they're not.

He tattoo was a bad idea.

So this is the problem we have with the left as they fall in love with these candidates that embrace really unpopular.

Positions like abolishing Thanksgiving and some of the things Graham Platner was talking to because there's some sort of like working class hero.

You got to do your homework and you've got to find people who have actually not only run been vetted, but actually got things done.

That's the difference why David Crowley, one, this is a guy who 3 times when he was growing up, they got infected grow, grew up in the arrest, zip code the country.

Put himself through college was a community organizer like somebody else.

We've talked about and was the first black county executive in Milwaukee County where they deliver better services lower taxes.

That isn't somebody Republicans want a vote for.

They want to run against the DSA candidates because they're so easy to be showing.

You know, twice.

Now, Peter is brought up things giving abolition is like a major issue as if the whole campaign was going around telling voters are number one issue in this election is about Thanksgiving.

That's obviously not was the case.

I don't think that Thanksgiving is the prime issue for any voters.

I think voters with me about how life or to put food on my table and that is what the essays tenants are focused on were focused welcome center, working class agenda that understands that people's means matter what more than anything else.

We can't just pretending that we can get along with corporations and big business that we have to fight for.

Independent working class power.

>> To build power for the working class, independent of corporations independent, a big capital.

I what I think the issues that are resonating with voters is that we're not looking for just piecemeal reforms were looking for transformative reforms, things like Medicare for all a policy point is overwhelming popular with the electorate.

We need to push for policy positions of people support.

And the U.S.

is program is largely very popular.

And I just want to say the left and give you any of these candidates, Democrat voter base dead.

>> Jason planning victory comes after Abdul El-Sayed whenever over establishment candidate Haley Stevens in Michigan last week.

So now we've got, you know, Democratic primaries in Midwest, in the rearview mirror for the most part, bigger sample size to work with.

Are we learning anything about the region's appetite for further left-wing candidates?

>> I think its candidate dependent and state and constituency dependent.

Some of those candidates have identified themselves with the S a some, including Abdel Al Sayed who won in Michigan.

Very progressive has not.

So there's some labeling that's changing any trace.

And really there's the power of how they are is actual candidates.

And in Stephens particular race should so much money behind her that that became a powerful argument against her.

And so if one of your concerns somebody who's voting is the aggregation of wealth, the use of wealth in politics.

If that's the one thing that really angers you and frustrates you, you're not gonna vote for Haley Stevens and that's and that is a particular issue that motivated people there in a way that it would not have motivated people in a different race, but that there is something to be said, though, about the way progress it's run their campaigns did spend the whole last week of the campaign trying to explain Thanksgiving L said had to spend the first week of his campaign explaining Hasan Piker and why Hasan Piker.

>> thought.

American deserved 9.11, and how outside had to explain that.

That wasn't his position.

But he went on the show.

Why are you going on the show?

It's it's the way progressive run in the rhetoric that they adopt and the positions that they take.

Here's another one.

You brought a Medicare for all, which I'd like to talk about.

But let's talk about a bouncing the police, the left in Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered, put on the ballot a referendum to abolish the police.

It was soundly defeated by Democrats led by black voters on the north side of Minneapolis because no one believed that was going to deliver a former keep everybody safe.

So this is the problem with the left.

They from these bumper sticker slogans like Medicare for All and Abolish the police and they go campaign with folks who are huge.

You know, millstone around their neck when they get to the general election.

That's the whole week in Michigan where I'm a voter where else aide who's a very talented candidate, unlike some of the other side mentioned like Graham Platner and and is a very good candidate on his feet.

Really smart but had to spend the whole week on the defensive because that's the way progressives organized.

So they go to the voices that are the most this extreme.

So OK, so you mentioned a couple of things.

You know.

>> It's some of the success it's mostly congressional level so far.

You know, TSA, Canada has candidate has won statewide.

Could see, you know, that's going to happen in November.

But, Sean, what does need to happen for a D as a candidate to not to statewide went to appeal to to everyone, not just the left.

And I mean, I'd love to hear, you know, some of your What what Peter said, especially with regard to like voters?

Sure.

I mean, I think what the U.S.

needs to do is keep organizing the essays, largest chapter.

New York City now has over 14,000 members.

>> And we're seeing the organization go deeper and deeper ties into communities, including coming scholars and the labor movement.

And what's great about TSA that separates it from the Democrat Party, that it's an actual party.

It is a mass membership organization where members pay dues and they get to have rights as members.

They have meetings branches they're able to to direct the policy of the party and its move forward by members.

We don't have paid canvassers going door-to-door for the most part.

We have people taking time away from their jobs away from their families because they believe in the political vision.

That is what makes the DSA different.

That's what we bring to table and that's how we can win bigger and bigger is biking.

More and more people into this movement into the essay is an organization and I frankly find a little bit of the comments with Peter said a little condescending.

Why did people think that we need to move past police and prisons because police and prisons have been devastating to communities in this country.

We have seen here in Chicago over and over again every year the city council spends millions of dollars for these lawsuits because the police keep killing innocent people.

We're seeing that prisons aren't performing anyone.

They're just making trauma worse.

We need to learn to address these problems by pressing the root cause punishing individuals isn't addressing crosses, will be unity, was invest in our communities in best in people and work towards not just addressing the problem, but making sure that violence isn't something that's accepted like it's a natural disaster.

These are manmade inside and make things and we can result.

Jason, you look like you've got something to say.

I would say simply this this discussion, which is incredibly healthy is not of this question you would ever see.

>> In the Republican Party right now about what its future looks like because that is a party about one person and one person only at this moment in time.

Having said that, what's also happening is there's a much longer range development in American politics and institutions which is going on my view through all of these elections.

And even in this conversation that we're having at this table and that is a breakdown in trust of institutions in our country.

And we can date that as far back.

If you want to go back to the Kennedy assassination or Vietnam Watergate, but really in my political lifetime, the campaign of Ross Perot in 1992, which is the first time somebody said the 2 major political parties are not responsive to the problems that we feel as voters and his constituents and any time that is manifest, they're going to be insurgent political movements that are going to organize because they are anti institutional.

They also are sometimes prone to rhetorical excess.

And what happens to Democrats impeach talking about is they get saddled with that.

Sometimes the positive that comes out of it is you get different in new ideas that start outside of the mainstream.

But gradually over time become more mainstream.

And we could say things like universal health care or Social Security or Medicare are all ideas.

It started way out.

Some could say on the left, but gradually became understood as many mainstream.

And I think what's happening in these races, you're getting a combination of those larger social factors playing out election by-election by-election in very different ways because of the different constituencies in Canada.

Talent.

>> I want live because we have to talk about the money in politics because one of the biggest talking points for left-leaning candidates has been money.

I do a dual El Sayed talking constantly about the corporate money that was poured into the Michigan race on behalf of Haley Stevens.

Flanagan also making it a central part of a her campaign.

Here she is.

>> For months now, I've been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money.

Well, guess what?

The many just one.

>> Sean is taking corporate money becoming a nonstarter for candidates competing in a Democratic primary.

I think it is.

I think voters don't trust corporations.

They don't trust billionaires.

You look at polling, billionaires are some the most unpopular people in society today.

>> And so when TSA candidates come to their door when DSA members come in the door and say we don't take money, we are funded and powered by ordinary working class people.

That makes a difference.

And we've seen how the Democrat Party has moved away from being a party with workers to a party of corporations.

Clinton, President Clinton, for example, oversaw the dismay flee as welfare of welfare as we know it, he oversaw NAFTA which decimated trade unions and the industry is working class in this country.

We're tired of people putting profits over people.

We need a system puts people over profits.

That's democratic socialism feet.

>> I think the Democratic Party writ large has stands up corporations the party of people.

The problem that we get saddled with with a lot of the bumper sticker ideas that we get from the left.

Let's talk about Medicare for all.

If you look at any Democratic primary polling from 2020 in the presidential, it was much more popular.

Talk about expanding Obamacare to cover working families.

Really important language working families who can't get insurance at work when swing voters here, Medicare for all, they hear a giveaway.

The government funded giveaway.

It weakens our message.

And guess what, it doesn't get done.

And this is the real problem with the TSA and the left is their absolute every major piece of legislation ever gotten gotten path for their Social Security to Obamacare was done through compromising with the DSA in the left is says is it's our way or were voting for Jill Stein.

That gives you Donald Trump or voting for Ralph Nader that came George W Bush.

And that's the problem that we have and our party, our base, which is mostly black voters and working people feel like they get hung out to dry by bad candidates, bad policies and then the DSA takes a walk.

So helps the Republicans in the general.

So on the corporate money, there's consensus on that.

But you got a fire fight fire with fire mean you got?

Donald Trump right now sitting on 400 million dollars and the only way we can fight back as a party.

If you're the DSCC, the D Triple C the Democratic Governors Association is to try to raise as much money as you can from wherever it comes from someone your absolute best about money.

You actually helped the Republicans win.

So we're almost out of time let you respond quickly.

I don't think most policy that people benefit from today was run through compromise, I think was one through struggle.

The Civil Rights the civil rights voting, that these are things that are not given to people.

They were taken through struggle.

Same thing was in the 30's.

But the different labor protections of a one.

>> They were one through organize working class people.

Ordinary people come together organizing.

So I don't believe in compromise, J so I believe in what Republican Party is not having this conversation.

They have all coalesced around.

We know biggest test of where the party is headed who they're going to nominate for president, of course, in 2028, what kind of candidate do you think?

We'll see in 20 seconds, a candidate who's prepared to break constitutional norms and run for a 3rd from the Democratic Party.

>> From the Well, this is this is an overarching point.

What looks good on paper.

It is not always what's good practice.

It has to be somebody who can bring together the different parts of the larger socials like iced and be a good communicator.

And that means bringing a lot of people in.