{"id":1822,"date":"2026-06-12T18:35:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1822"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:35:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:35:46","slug":"bernie-sanders-pulls-democratic-party-hard-left-as-his-primary-picks-rack-up-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1822","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders pulls Democratic Party hard left as his primary picks rack up wins"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Sen. Bernard Sanders is steadily making good on his long\u2011running mission to pull the Democratic Party to the far left.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1821\">Top Pakistani mediator says U.S.-Iran deal is close to completion<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 84-year-old Vermont independent \u2014 and avowed democratic socialist \u2014 has blessed a slate of far-left candidates who have racked up primary wins by channeling a Sanders\u2011style populist message aimed at voters who feel the wealthy and politically powerful have rigged the system against them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople understand that the system is broken, it is rigged, it is corrupt \u2014 they want change,\u201d Mr. Sanders said during a recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington. \u201cI am happy to say we are having some real success. We are winning primaries all over the country, and I think we are going to win more in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A day later, left-wing firebrand Graham Platner, a former Marine and oyster farmer whom Mr. Sanders endorsed in the fall, eviscerated Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer\u2019s preferred pick, Gov. Janet Mills, in the Maine U.S. Senate primary after harnessing Mainers\u2019 frustrations with the economy and \u201cforever wars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Platner is now poised to face five\u2011term Republican Sen. Susan Collins in what is shaping up to be one of the marquee Senate races of the midterms.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Sanders\u2019 influence isn\u2019t confined to New England.<\/p>\n<p>He also notched a win in California\u2019s 22nd Congressional District, where Randy Villegas, a school board trustee and auto shop owner, outperformed Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains \u2014 who had the backing of state and national Democratic leaders \u2014 to finish second in the top\u2011two primary. He\u2019ll face Republican Rep. David Valadao in November in a race the Cook Political Report rates as a toss\u2011up.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Villegas, the son of Mexican immigrants, leaned heavily into his working\u2011class background in a district that is roughly 70% Latino, talking about growing up on Medicaid and free school lunches. Like Mr. Platner, he has criticized the party for losing touch with working\u2011class voters and failing to address the rising costs of child care, education, and health care.<\/p>\n<p>Other Sanders-backed primary winners include Analilia Mej\u00eda in New Jersey\u2019s 11th District; Bob Brooks, a firefighters\u2019 union chief, in Pennsylvania\u2019s competitive 7th District; and Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and city councilman, in Ohio\u2019s 7th District.<\/p>\n<p>His picks aren\u2019t always winners. Candidates he backed in two Illinois House races and primaries in North Carolina and Utah came up short.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Sanders has also pushed into local and state races, where his record is mixed but his goal is the same.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1819\">How GOP\u2019s immigration enforcement bill came to include major funding to combat child exploitation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is trying to build up a farm team,\u201d said Matthew Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College. \u201cHe understands that tomorrow\u2019s senators are today\u2019s local elected officials and state legislative officials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dickinson said Mr. Sanders \u201ccan\u2019t be ignored\u201d after his competitive 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton and second\u2011place finish in 2020. \u201cHe used to be viewed as someone\u2019s crazy uncle who comes to the picnic, sits by himself and spouts off. Now he is sitting at the main dining table, and you have to listen to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the Press Club, Mr. Sanders said the Democratic Party is at a crossroads, arguing it has drifted from its working\u2011class roots and must return to the politics of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of folks whose parents were Democrats are now Republicans,\u201d he said. \u201cThey left not because they believe in tax breaks for billionaires or the authoritarianism of Trump, but because they did not see the Democrats provide a vision that would make their lives and their kids\u2019 lives better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Republicans, meanwhile, are happy to have Mr. Sanders elevating candidates such as Mr. Platner and Abdul El\u2011Sayed, who is running in a tight three\u2011way Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBernie Sanders may have once represented the far\u2011left fringe of the Democratic Party, but now he represents the mainstream,\u201d said Kiersten Pels, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. \u201cThe Democrat Party has fully embraced extremism and socialism as its guiding ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Centrist groups, meanwhile, are sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n<p>Kate deGruyter, senior director of communications for Third Way, warned that the Sanders model has its limits. \u201cThe urgent mission for Democrats right now is not turning blue seats bluer, but turning red seats blue, and on that score, it\u2019s the moderate wing of the party that has a very significant track record of success,\u201d she said, noting that New Democrat Coalition-backed candidates have flipped 50 House seats in the Trump era while Sanders-backed candidates have yet to flip a Republican-held seat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDemocrats can\u2019t run hard to the left because there are just fewer liberals than any other ideological group in the country,\u201d Ms. deGruyter said. \u201cWe have to be able to win a super majority of moderate voters, and the danger is that the Sanders approach could hinder us in that vital effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1817\">Ariana Grande tells White House to stop using her music to promote ICE<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bernard Sanders is steadily making good on his long-running mission to pull the Democratic Party to the far left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[846,424,202,1256],"class_list":["post-1822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-bernard-sanders","tag-democratic-party","tag-graham-platner","tag-randy-villegas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bernie Sanders pulls Democratic Party hard left as his primary picks rack up wins - Home Buyer Relocation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=1822\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bernie Sanders pulls Democratic Party hard left as his primary picks rack up wins - Home Buyer Relocation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sen. 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