Since the 2016 combination of Donald Trump’s election and Bernie Sanders’s breakthrough campaign, efforts to synergize grassroots organizing with electoral engagement have become a priority for both long-standing and new radical formations. The dominant strategy is for socialists and progressives to run as Democrats aiming to both block MAGA’s drive toward US-style fascism and to win a measure of Left “governing power.”

In the last year, such efforts have yielded impressive results. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is mayor of the nation’s largest city. Abdul El-Sayed, an outspoken advocate for Medicare for All and Palestinian rights, won the Democratic nomination for US senator in Michigan. More than a dozen sitting congressmembers are champions of Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party (WFP), or the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and their number is likely to grow following the midterms. A serious conversation is underway about the broad Left rallying behind a movement-identified candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. That person (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the most-talked about choice) would run not just to promote radical ideas or influence the eventual nominee but to win.

It’s a promising start, and prospects are good for its momentum to continue. But it will take orders of magnitude more wins for this radical insurgency to match the strength of either MAGA or the long-standing Democratic Party leadership, much less exceed it.