Establishment Dems Stave Off the Left in Key California Congressional Primaries

With many votes still to be counted in California and little certainty in most of Tuesday’s closest-watched primary elections, one early pattern is taking shape: Progressive candidates for Congress across the state are failing to top their more moderate Democratic opponents.

In the race for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat in San Francisco, the YIMBY state Sen. Scott Wiener secured a comfortable victory with more than 40 percent of the vote, according to The Associated Press, which made the early call. Local politician Connie Chan earned the second spot, leaving Saikat Chakrabarti , a prominent figure in national progressive politics, off the general election ballot in November.

In Los Angeles, AIPAC-backed incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez easily won a spot on the November ballot, according to a call from the AP. Despite the election-day revelation of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Gomez fended off a challenge from the progressive insurgent Angela Gonzales-Torres by a wide margin. Results are still coming in, but Gonzales-Torres appears likely to face off against Gomez again in the general election thanks to California’s “ jungle primary ” system, in which the top two candidates move on to a runoff.

Meanwhile in Sacramento, longtime establishment Democrat Rep. Doris Matsui is currently leading progressive City Councilmember Mai Vang, though that race remains too close to call.

In these three solidly blue districts, each race has been viewed as part of a wider battle for control between a Democratic establishment seen as faltering in the face of the second Trump administration and a progressive wing that has grown in influence in the decade since the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — and argues the establishment strategy gave rise to Trump in the first place.

Chakrabarti, Gonzales-Torres, and Vang all had the backing of Justice Democrats , a group that supports progressive challengers in primary elections and helped elect members of the Squad in Congress. Earlier in the evening, Justice Democrats notched a victory when Dr. Adam Hamawy , a former combat surgeon who volunteered in Gaza and faced a barrage of attacks that often peddled in Islamophobic tropes, comfortably beat a crowded field of Democrats in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.

Justice Dems Co-Founder Won’t Replace Pelosi

Justice Democrats had hoped to elevate Chakrabarti, one of its co-founders, to Congress. After earning his fortune at the tech firm Stripe, the centimillionaire worked on Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and became chief of staff to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Chakrabarti grew to become an influential activist in progressive politics, but he was often a divisive figure, known for riling Democrats online and antagonizing Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who he hoped to succeed. Pelosi, who won her last reelection with 82 percent of the vote in her district, ultimately endorsed Chan, a San Francisco Board of Supervisors member. When The AP called the race for Chan, she held a lead of 13 percent over Chakrabarti.

Chakrabarti, Chan, and Wiener all jockeyed to be seen as the progressive in the race: All three campaigns call for Medicare for All, the overturning of Citizens United, and abolishing or defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet differing views on Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and wealth taxes on billionaires , which Wiener and some of his richest tech-and-development-friendly backers oppose, became notable wedge issues.

While Wiener and Chan have come to embrace placing conditions on offensive weapons to Israel, Chakrabarti advocated for a total arms embargo on the country. Wiener’s previous support for pro-Israel bills in the state legislature and his earlier opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza drew intense scrutiny during the race, and anti-genocide and anti-Zionist protesters at times disrupted his events on the campaign trail.

The weekend before the primary election, the race was jolted with final-hour reporting from Drop Site News that revealed the pro-Israel lobby giant, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and its offshoot, Democratic Majority for Israel, had been funneling money into a super PAC supporting Chan. Chakrabarti used the revelation to claim that AIPAC had attempted to keep him out of the general election because of his support for Palestinian human rights, suggesting a degree of collusion between Chan and AIPAC.

Chan, in turn, rejected Chakrabarti’s claims as “absurd and laughable.” She restated her campaign pledge against accepting AIPAC donations and her advocacy for Palestinian rights.

AIPAC-Backed Incumbent Holds Strong Amid Scanda l

In Los Angeles, Gonzales-Torres, a community organizer, also made her opposition to the pro-Israel lobby and Israel’s genocide in Gaza a major part of her platform against Gomez. Despite the incumbent’s earlier vows that he would try to rid h…