The left uses primaries. The right wastes them.
You can’t drain the swamp by refilling it with the same sorts of politicians backed by the same special-interest money driving the status quo. The leftist base learned that lesson for its own dangerous purposes this primary season. The conservative base, meanwhile, has somehow unlearned what it knew during the Tea Party years.
Liberal voters are knocking out very liberal Democrats for candidates even further left. Republican voters are not only keeping their moderates; they are knocking out some of the few members who actually fight for the party’s stated goals. What gives?
The left built a movement. The right built an industry. The results show.
There are only a few dozen full-spectrum conservatives among the 219 House Republicans who keep the pedal to the metal on immigration, fiscal, and social issues. Contrast that with Democrats, where you’d be hard-pressed to find a member outside a swing district who dissents from party dogma on a major issue. Yet seven Democratic incumbents have already lost primaries this cycle.
In Texas, Rep. Al Green lost to fellow incumbent Christian Menefee, while Julie Johnson lost a rematch with former Rep. Colin Allred. In New York, Dan Goldman lost to Brad Lander, and Adriano Espaillat lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier. Diana DeGette lost to Melat Kiros in Colorado. Shri Thanedar lost to DSA-backed Donavan McKinney in Michigan. John Larson lost to former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in Connecticut.
These were not moderates. DeGette, for example, was a House manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021. Yet to the Democratic base, she might as well have been Trump.
Most significantly, not one incumbent on the left lost to someone more moderate. You’d be hard-pressed even to find serious moderate challengers against Democratic incumbents.
Now contrast that with the GOP. Last cycle, the only Republican incumbent to lose was Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good. This cycle, Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, one of the caucus’ most conservative members, was unseated by a Republican backed by a green energy PAC. In Kentucky, Thomas Massie was defeated by a candidate generally to his left, with President Trump’s help. The one clean ideological defeat from the right was Dan Crenshaw, who lost to Texas state Rep. Steve Toth — in a race where Trump thankfully declined to rescue the moderate incumbent.
Cory Mills also lost in Florida, and good riddance, but scandals and corruption drove that race more than a groundswell to move the party toward its base.
Overall, with Freedom Caucus retirements added in, we are backsliding. And that doesn’t begin to capture the lost decade of conservative primaries.
For several cycles, as Trump endorsements refilled the swamp in statewide and federal races, the bright spot was the State Freedom Caucus Network. It gradually won open seats and knocked off incumbents in state legislatures, peaking in 2024 when its members took control of the South Dakota and Wyoming Houses.
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Two years later, the establishment came back with a vengeance. South Dakota’s Freedom Caucus was essentially wiped out, and the Wyoming caucus lost 13 seats and its majority. In Idaho, five conservatives were defeated by Republicans backed by Gov. Brad Little, whom Trump endorsed for a third term. Elsewhere we have gained some and lost some, but the advance of liberty has largely stalled.
During the Tea Party era, we invested in activists. Today we invest in podcasters, TikTokers, and sycophantic grifters who sniff Trump’s rear end all the way to financial success. You reap what you sow. We have endless content, endless influencers, and endless Mar-a-Lago high rollers — but comparatively little money and activism flowing to conservative candidates in primaries.
Meanwhile, the Democratic base is dragging its party closer to the left goal post even in state races. In New York, DSA-backed candidates — many aided by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s political network — toppled a string of incumbent legislators.
I watch right-leaning propagators online, and they are already obsessed with the next presidential election. What they fail to understand is that even if their dream candidate wins the primary and the White House, he will inherit a generation of Lindsey Graham’s sister acolytes who oppose the reform agenda these same influencers claim to want.
And they will have nobody to blame but themselves for sleeping through the lost decade of primaries.
The left built a movement. The right built an industry. The results show.
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Michael Beck Photography. Used with permission.
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