The Bow-and-Scrape Primary

Are Democratic presidential hopefuls beginning a political pilgrimage to Mamdani, El-Sayed and Hasan Piker’s socialist left?

It may be one of the strangest sights in modern Democratic politics.

Politicians who may soon ask Americans to make them President of the United States are crisscrossing the country, cultivating activists, making telephone calls, seeking interviews, issuing endorsements and carefully navigating a political movement that only a few years ago Democratic leaders often treated as a noisy faction on their left flank.

Now the faction has votes.

It has organizers.

It has money.

It has an enormous online audience.

And, perhaps most importantly, it has demonstrated that it can defeat establishment Democrats in Democratic primaries.

So begins what might fairly be called The Bow-and-Scrape Primary.

That phrase is intentionally provocative. Nobody is literally kneeling before New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed or political streamer Hasan Piker and asking permission to run for president.

But something politically significant is happening.

Prospective Democratic presidential candidates increasingly have reason to seek the attention, voters, activists and ideological goodwill represented by those three men and the broader democratic-socialist ecosystem surrounding them.

Kamala Harris privately reached out to Mamdani in 2026 while also meeting with progressive and pro-Palestinian activists. Gavin Newsom has positioned himself as willing to appear with Piker and endorsed El-Sayed before his Michigan Senate primary victory. Pete Buttigieg’s representatives previously sought an appearance on Piker’s stream, only for Piker to regard Buttigieg as too centrist. ([Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/07/01/harris-mamdani-progressives-2028?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Those are not imaginary connections.

They are evidence of a changing marketplace of influence inside the Democratic Party.

Three Men, Three Different Kinds of Power

It is important to get the facts right because the argument becomes considerably stronger when exaggeration is removed.

Mamdani, El-Sayed and Piker are not three officials sitting around a table deciding who receives the Democratic Socialists of America’s presidential endorsement.

They represent three different forms of political influence.

Zohran Mamdani: Electoral Power

Mamdani is the clearest institutional connection to democratic socialism.

He is a longtime DSA member whose rise has become a model for activists hoping to translate socialist organizing into electoral victories. DSA publications themselves have celebrated the political significance of Mamdani’s success, while the organization’s 2026 electoral operation expanded to scores of endorsed candidates around the country. ([Democratic Left](https://democraticleft.dsausa.org/2025/11/12/making-mamdani-a-model/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Mamdani’s importance therefore extends well beyond New York City.

His political value is that he demonstrated a formula.

Build volunteers.

Organize relentlessly.

Talk about affordability.

Make complicated ideological ideas sound like answers to groceries, rent, transportation and healthcare.

Turn activists into campaign infrastructure.

Then defeat candidates backed by the traditional Democratic establishment.

That gets the attention of anyone considering a presidential primary.

Abdul El-Sayed: Progressive Electoral Expansion

El-Sayed requires a particularly important correction.

He is not a DSA member and describes himself as a capitalist, not a socialist.

In a 2026 New Yorker interview, when directly asked why he had not joined the Democratic Socialists of America, El-Sayed explicitly said, “I’m just not a socialist.” ([The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/abdul-el-sayeds-argument-for-america-and-against-his-own-party?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That distinction matters.

But politically, it may make his success even more interesting.

El-Sayed represents the possibility that candidates do not necessarily have to adopt the socialist label to tap into many of the issues, organizers and constituencies energized by the socialist left.

His 2026 Michigan Senate primary victory over establishment-backed opposition showed that progressive economic politics could compete in a major industrial swing state rather than merely in deeply blue urban districts. Afterward, leading Democrats quickly moved toward party unity around his candidacy. ([AP News](https://apnews.com/article/0244cbcafd39288608d2ea73636a59cd?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Newsom had endorsed him before that victory and subsequently headed to Michigan as part of his broader Democratic campaigning effort. ([San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/gavin-newsom-michigan-democrats-22376220.php?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That is how political gravitational fields develop.

Win, and politicians who previously considered you too far outside the establishment suddenly discover the importance of party unity.

Hasan Piker: The New Media Gatekeeper

Then there is Hasan Piker.

Piker holds no elected office.

He does not command a state party.

He does not control the DSA’s endorsement process.

Yet his influence demonstrates something traditional political strategists are only beginning to understand: political power no longer requires an office.

It requires an audience.

Piker has become one of the country’s most visible left-wing political streamers, providing access to a large, disproportionately younger audience that Democratic politicians desperately want to reach.

The evidence of that value is remarkably simple.

Politicians seek his platform.

The New Yorker reported in 2025 that Buttigieg’s team had asked whether Piker would interview him. Piker was reluctant because he considered Buttigieg too centrist. ([The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/24/the-battle-for-the-bros?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Newsom later publicly indicated that he would be willing to appear on Piker’s show. ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD8ulj1n8JM&utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Think about that relationship for a moment.

A possible future presidential candidate possesses the elected office, the national fundraising network and the traditional political résumé.

The streamer possesses something the politician needs:

access.

That is a remarkable reversal of traditional political hierarchy.

This Is Bigger Than Three Personalities

The central mistake would be to interpret this as a story about three men.

It isn’t.

The real story is the development of an alternative political infrastructure inside and alongside the Democratic Party.

DSA openly describes electoral campaigning as a mechanism for building independent political power and holding elected officials accountable. Its national endorsement process is tied not simply to agreement on policy but to an organization’s ability to mount serious field operations. ([Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)](https://www.dsausa.org/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That is important.

This isn’t merely an ideological book club.

It is political machinery.

By early 2026, DSA-linked reporting counted almost 90 endorsed candidates, including more than a dozen congressional candidates. Later that year, the organization highlighted additional wins in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York. ([Democratic Left](https://democraticleft.dsausa.org/2026/03/02/chapters-prepare-for-a-busy-electoral-season-in-2026/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

Whether one admires or fears the movement, dismissing that organizational growth would be foolish.

Why Would Presidential Candidates Court Them?

Because presidential primaries are not general elections.

A candidate does not initially have to convince every voter in America.

He or she must first assemble enough factions of one political party to survive a nomination contest.

Every presidential candidate therefore looks for constituencies capable of providing several things at once:

votes, volunteers, money, enthusiasm, media exposure and organizational muscle.

The socialist and progressive left can potentially provide all six.

That makes it valuable even to Democratic politicians who don’t personally embrace socialism.

And that is where the potential danger for Democrats begins.

The Primary Election Trap

What helps a politician win a Democratic primary may hurt that politician in November.

A Reuters/Ipsos survey released August 7, 2026 illustrates the contradiction beautifully.

Several individual progressive policies performed well among independents. Sixty-four percent of independents surveyed supported raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations, while 60 percent supported government-provided healthcare.

But when the same electorate encountered the political label “democratic socialist,” 43 percent of independents said that label made them less likely to support a candidate. ([Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/some-us-progressive-goals-win-support-independent-voters-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2026-08-07/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

There is the Democrats’ dilemma in a nutshell.

Some socialist-associated policies can be popular.

The socialist brand can be significantly less popular.

A Democratic presidential candidate may therefore spend the primary attempting to secure socialist activists while planning to spend the general election explaining that he or she isn’t actually a socialist.

That is an uncomfortable political straddle.

The Question Isn’t Whether Candidates Talk to Them

Politicians should talk to people with whom they disagree.

Appearing on hostile or ideologically different media is not automatically capitulation.

Newsom, for example, has deliberately pursued a broad media strategy that has included voices on both the political left and right.

Likewise, contacting Mamdani does not prove that Harris has adopted Mamdani’s complete political program.

Endorsing El-Sayed does not transform Newsom into a socialist.

Trying to arrange a Piker interview does not turn Buttigieg into one either.

The intellectually serious question is different:

That is where ordinary political outreach becomes political deference.

Watch not merely whom candidates meet.

Watch what happens afterward.

Which policies suddenly become untouchable?

Which activists are no longer criticized?

Which ideological tests emerge?

Which positions that once would have been considered outside the Democratic mainstream become prerequisites for surviving a presidential primary?

2028 May Settle the Argument

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville is already framing the coming presidential primary as a test of the socialist wing’s actual strength inside his party.

On August 8, 2026, reporting on Carville’s comments described his expectation that a broad Democratic field could ultimately force primary voters to decide how far left the party intends to travel. ([New York Post](https://nypost.com/2026/08/08/media/james-carville-predicts-2028-democratic-primary-will-test-true-strength-of-partys-socialist-wing/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

That may be exactly right.

For years, Americans have debated whether democratic socialism represents the future of the Democratic Party, merely one faction of it, or an ideology whose influence is exaggerated by social media and heavily Democratic cities.

Presidential elections have a useful way of ending theoretical arguments.

They count votes.

DSA itself describes national endorsements as serious organizational commitments rather than symbolic gestures, and socialist activists have already been debating how presidential politics should fit into their broader strategy. ([DSA Electoral Commission](https://electoral.dsausa.org/our-campaigns/?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

The 2028 Democratic primary could therefore become something larger than a contest between Newsom, Buttigieg, Ocasio-Cortez, Harris or whoever ultimately decides to run.

It could become a referendum on what kind of party Democrats intend to be.

Capitalism or Democratic Socialism?

Eventually the semantic games will have to end.

America deserves a clear debate.

Should prosperity primarily be created through private ownership, entrepreneurship, investment, competition and voluntary exchange?

Or should increasingly large parts of economic life be administered, subsidized, regulated or owned through government institutions?

Those are legitimate political questions.

They deserve something better than slogans from either side.

But presidential candidates should be required to answer them.

Not merely when speaking to Wall Street donors.

Not merely when speaking to union halls.

Not merely while appearing on cable television.

Ask them while standing beside Mamdani.

Ask them after seeking Piker’s audience.

Ask them while campaigning for El-Sayed.

Ask whether the candidate believes capitalism requires reform—or replacement.

There is an enormous difference.

The Bow-and-Scrape Test

So perhaps Americans should watch the developing 2028 campaign through a simple lens.

Don’t merely ask which Democrats visit Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada or Michigan.

Ask which ideological constituencies they visit before they get there.

Watch the phone calls.

Watch the endorsements.

Watch the podcasts.

Watch the Twitch streams.

Watch which activists suddenly become indispensable.

And most importantly, watch whether the politicians challenge those activists when they disagree.

Because meeting with someone is democracy.

Debating someone is democracy.

Seeking votes is democracy.

But refusing to speak honestly because a political faction controls something you need is something else entirely.

That is when courting becomes deference.

That is when influence becomes a veto.

And that is when a presidential primary begins to resemble bowing and scraping.

The Bottom Line

The Democratic Socialists of America do not control the Democratic Party.

Mamdani does not personally control the DSA.

El-Sayed is not a DSA member and explicitly says he is not a socialist.

Piker is a media personality rather than an elected official or DSA officer.

Those distinctions should not be blurred.

But neither should the larger political development be ignored.

A growing socialist and socialist-adjacent political ecosystem has accumulated activists, candidates, media influence and electoral victories significant enough that ambitious national Democrats are paying attention.

That attention will only increase if the movement keeps winning.

The real test comes next.

Will Democratic presidential hopefuls merely listen to this faction?

Or will they begin competing to prove their ideological obedience to it?

If it is the former, that’s ordinary democratic politics.

If it becomes the latter, then the Bow-and-Scrape Primary will have truly begun.

Sources & Further Reading