Several rich Donald Trump supporters have been doing a curious thing this election cycle: sending thousands of dollars to New York Democrats running for state assembly. Why would these enemies of reproductive choice, fair elections, and clean air get involved in local races so obscure most locals aren’t even aware of them?

What might Nikki Lucas of East New York, Erik Dilan of North Brooklyn, Grace Lee of Chinatown, and the Hudson Valley’s Kevin Cahill have in common that would attract big Republican dollars? The answer is simple: all four face competitive races against socialist candidates endorsed by the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), part of a slate endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

Republicans are willing to form a big-tent coalition with centrist Democrats against NYC-DSA’s agenda of publicly funded renewable energy and publicly owned power, affordable housing, single-payer health care, free public college, universal childcare, and fully funded public schools. While NYC-DSA campaigns always attract volunteer energy, these campaigns have stood out in an election season in which few mainstream, national Democrats are talking about the climate crisis — much less offering solutions to it — or about single-payer health care or any of the other issues that ignited Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Instead, the Joe Biden administration seems to be working hard to make Democrats as unpopular as possible (planning, for example, to reduce the nicotine levels in cigarettes — surely an issue where the relative levels of voter preference intensity will work against the administration). Not every candidate in NYC-DSA’s slate will win, but they’re all promising leaders with significant organization and grassroots energy behind them. This slate has a serious agenda, a movement, and a future. That’s why the Republicans want to stop them.