WASHINGTON (AP) — There's been a lot of talk this midterm election season about socialism, but only a handful of candidates running for Congress actually align with the far-left wing of the party or consider themselves part of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Most of these candidates come from a few Democratic strongholds, and several toppled seasoned incumbents in hard-fought primary campaigns. They are expected to win their elections on Nov. 3, and would join two democratic socialists already in the House.
The progressive newcomers bring a new energy to the Democratic Party and also potential challenges for leadership, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans hold the House majority, for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term.
While Republicans have raised alarm bells over socialism, the warning may not pack the punch it once did, particularly among Democrats. These candidates wouldn't be the first democratic socialists on the national scene. The election of New York's Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and the enduring influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont all speak to shifting ideas in American politics.
Here's a look at some of the candidates potentially coming to Congress.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, New York
Chevalier was a community organizer and a field staffer for Mamdani’s mayoral campaign who landed an upset victory over long-serving Rep. Adriano Espaillat in upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
A newcomer to politics who formally became a democratic socialist last year, Chevalier centered her campaign on the idea that government — and her opponent — had abandoned the working class. She argued Congress needs fresh faces to challenge the status quo.
“I think folks are really tired of politics that seems more beholden to donors,” she told The Associated Press hours before she won her primary.
Chevalier once helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and made opposition to Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza the cornerstone of her campaign. She was arrested last month during a protest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan.
Melat Kiros, Colorado
Kiros, a lawyer turned doctoral student, won a stunning primary victory, the first-time candidate beating 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in the Denver-area seat.
The 29-year-old, an immigrant from Ethiopia whose family relocated to Colorado after she was born, earned a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Washington College in Maryland, and her law degree from the University of Notre Dame. She was working as an attorney in New York City before running for Congress as a democratic socialist.
Taking to a stage under a sign that read “Power to the People,” Kiros laid out her plans in a victory speech: taking the fight to “Donald Trump and the oligarchy,” abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, passing Medicare for All and ending the “genocide in Palestine.”
“This is a movement,” Kiros said. “We are just getting started.”
Donavan McKinney, Michigan
The 34-year-old McKinney overcame a major spending disadvantage in the Democratic primary to unseat Rep. Shri Thanedar in a Detroit-area congressional district.
McKinney, a Michigan state lawmaker, ran a grassroots campaign focused on reforming utility costs, backing Medicare for All, and getting money out of politics.
“No longer can our party continue to serve two masters,” McKinney said at an event in August. “It’s up to us to push our party to either fight for the working people, or continue to fight for the corporate oligarchs.”
McKinney has described himself as a democratic socialist and was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Chris Rabb, Pennsylvania
Rabb has served 10 years in the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives, bringing a provocative style of politics as one of the chamber’s most progressive and outspoken members. The Ivy League-educated Rabb won a four-way primary in a heavily Democratic Philadelphia district.
Rabb has said that he joined the Philadelphia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in 2026, but that he traces his involvement with a constellation of progressive groups and causes. He ran on progressive issues in the primary, with an emphasis on the corrosive role of money in politics.
“I believe that the Democratic Party listens more to people who fund it than the people who actually come out to vote," he said. "And as a result, there’s this huge disconnect between the people closest to the pain and the people closest to the purse.”
He supported abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, imposing a moratorium on data centers and passing a Medicare for All health care subsidy. He also supported creating new government-run grocery stores — to wipe out “food deserts” — and expanding federal minimum wage law to eliminate a lower tipped minimum wage and cover independent contractors such as gig workers.
Claire Valdez, New York
Valdez is a state lawmaker and part of a slate of Mamdani-backed progressives in New York elections this year. She beat the handpicked successor to retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez in the Democratic primary for a sprawling, gentrified district in Brooklyn and Queens, and is expected to sail through to Congress this fall, given the district’s deep-blue bent.
She cast herself as a booster of Mamdani’s agenda in Washington and campaigned heavily on affordability and generational change, promising to bring the fight to Trump and champion the working class from Congress.
A member of the New York City chapter of the DSA since 2019, Valdez has said she hopes to prove the buzz around Mamdani’s election wasn’t a flash in the pan but instead signaled a burgeoning populist shift in the Democratic Party.
“Right now there’s really mass dissatisfaction with the way the party leadership has been operating and not standing up strongly enough to Trump,” Valdez told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Other progressive candidates to watch
Several other candidates align with the party's left wing but are not necessarily DSA members. Additionally, some democratic socialist candidates remain locked in tight election contests.
Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran and medical doctor, running in a safe Democratic district in New Jersey, has said he’s not a member of the DSA but that he would ally himself with people who support getting corporate money out of politics.
“They’re getting attacked again by fearmongering, which is really always the last resort when you have nothing to talk about,” he said in an interview with journalist Chris Hedges.
In California, Angela Gonzales-Torres is a democratic socialist running to unseat Rep. Jimmy Gomez in the Los Angeles district. And in Michigan, climate activist and former DSA member William Lawrence is looking to defeat GOP Rep. Tom Barrett in one of the nation’s most competitive seats.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Anthony Izaguirre, Joey Cappelletti, Jesse Bedayn, Marc Levy and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.
