RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Hasan Piker stand with Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong during a campaign rally for Hong on August 2, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. | Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Hasan Piker has for years now been both an asset and a liability for Democrats. The Twitch streamer has elevated base-energizing progressives, such as Darializa Avila Chevalier and Zohran Mamdani, in interviews and with endorsements. But he’s also stoked controversy with past anti-Israel commentary and generally caused headaches for establishment Democrats who would rather not see Hasan’s favored candidates get any more oxygen.
Why? A familiar concept for these kinds of centrist Democrats: electability.
That concept has been on many left-leaning voters’ minds over the past few weeks, as primaries have put progressive candidates to the test — with very mixed results. Last week, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate and democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost her primary to establishment favorite David Crowley. Not long before that, though, progressive Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed won his primary against the more mainstream Democratic candidate, Rep. Haley Stevens — albeit by a much smaller margin than many polls predicted.
America, Actually host Astead Herndon caught up with Piker to talk about whether the recent primary results have refined his understanding of how prepared Americans are to vote for democratic socialists, what support for unabashedly progressive candidates tells us about the changing working class in America, and the “pundit brain” problem in the Democratic Party.
Below is an excerpt of Astead’s conversation with Piker, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel .
The last two weeks have produced mixed results for left-wing candidates: a big win in Michigan and a win this week in Minnesota for Peggy Flanagan, but a loss for Francesca Hong, which was a surprise in Wisconsin.
What have been your takeaways from the last set of results?
I think the ground game is phenomenal. There’s a lot of excitement on the platform. There’s a lot of excitement for the first time for “Change Candidates.” It’s still a good environment to be in if you are a socialist.
The establishment does have a lot of juice still, for sure. And when they can put together a similar strategy to what happened in 2020 against Bernie Sanders with Joe Biden, especially in a place like Wisconsin where Tony Evers is very clearly still a very popular governor, they were able to elevate David Crowley’s campaign, who actually had dropped out and consolidated support behind Sara Rodriguez initially. And he had to drop out because he was only performing at, like, 6 percent.
Yeah, the consolidation was swift, and it was complete. I mean, you’re comparing it to 2020, in which the establishment lined up behind Joe Biden and kind of nixed that Bernie Sanders campaign in the blink of an eye. I imagine you were surprised at the result.
I never underestimate my opponents, whether they be Republicans or whether they be establishment Democrats. You have to always operate as though you’re down 10 points. I don’t believe in the notion that we are going to win easy victories at the end of the day.
There are a lot of powerful interests at play here. There are a lot of people in positions of power that don’t wanna lose their seats. So they’re gonna fight like hell, so we have to also fight like hell. We have to fight extra hard, as a matter of fact, because we’re almost always outspent, right?
I got an alert right before we started talking from the New York Times that said, “A democratic socialist lost in Wisconsin, which shows the movement’s surging wave might crash before rippling out from big cities.” Is that wrong?
Oh, I love that. Look, people are gonna have their opinions. I’ll just say it like this.
Abdul El-Sayed’s one-point victory margin showed that the Democratic socialist-aligned movement or the progressive movement was in tatters. It was obviously a failure. And now, David Crowley’s less-than-one-point victory proves that the centrist bulwark is still here, and that the Democratic socialist movement is dying.
It kind of feels like it’s wish-casting for the most part, from a lot of people who maybe want to go back to the way things used to be. My assessment on this is definitely a little bit different. I think, at the end of the day, these are insurgencies, right? These are insurgent candidacies.
We’re talking about no name recognition for a state legislator that was entirely propped up by local Wisconsin DSA chapters. These people didn’t have a lot of money necessarily, and they were able to defy the odds, and they continued defying the odds all the way until the end.
The idea that the polls showed that Francesca was a clear frontrunner and was running away with this race is utterly irrelevant. Especially if you were to look at this with a broader perspective, like thinking about where Democratic Socialists of America have gotten to in the last two years.
I mean, I remember how I felt in 2024, in the aftermath of the DNC, about where the American socialist movement was as opposed to where it is now. We are clearly a force to be reckoned with, and that’s precisely the reason why a lot of people are paying close attention to what’s going on.
And I’ll say it like this. The fact that the Hong campaign did not have any major progressive national endorsements, and that I was like their top surrogate.
There was no Bernie Sanders endorsement, there was no AOC endorsement. That did make the Hong campaign unique on that front.
I think there were a couple other races that I was also involved in where my candidates lost, right?
I mean, Saikat Chakrabart...
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