Six DSA Candidates Win House Seats, Even as Voters Stay Cold on Socialism

The Democratic Socialists of America just had its biggest election night ever. Six candidates backed by the group won House seats on Tuesday, quadrupling its footprint in Congress and handing the left flank real leverage inside a Democratic Party still fighting over how far left to go. It follows New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rise, another milestone for a movement that has spent years needling the establishment. Now Democrats control Congress — and the question is whether those wins turn into actual power.

Here's the awkward part. Most voters still don't like socialism. The new CNBC Voter Poll, surveying roughly 80,000 midterm voters, found 53% view socialism unfavorably while 33% view it favorably. Capitalism scored better, with 56% holding a positive view. Only 18% of voters called themselves democratic socialists.

The size of the Democratic wave could also water down the new members' clout. With Democrats projected to take more than 250 House seats, party leaders can afford to lose all eight DSA votes on most measures — far less leverage than the group would have in a razor-thin chamber. The money is flowing anyway: the 12 largest donors to American Priorities, a super PAC backing some DSA-aligned candidates, gave nearly $5.9 million this cycle, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings through Oct. 31. DSA co-chair Megan Romer told CNBC the group has paired more donors with a stronger ground game. Mailers and ads alone don't cut it anymore, she said — you have to knock on doors, make calls and talk to people at work and in their unions.

The sharper tests came far from liberal strongholds. In Florida, DSA member Angie Nixon finished within three percentage points of an upset in a state Democrats haven't won a Senate race in since 2012 and where President Donald Trump won by 13 points in 2024 — but she lost by a wider gap than moderate Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. Michigan echoed it: progressive Abdul El-Sayed, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., took his Senate seat by seven points yet trailed Democratic Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson's margin by nearly four. El-Sayed shares plenty of DSA priorities but isn't a member and says he wants to reform capitalism, not replace it.

Ballot measures split just as messily. Nearly two-thirds of voters in deep-red Montana backed limits on corporate political spending, while deep-blue California rejected a billionaire wealth tax by roughly 10 percentage points — even as it approved higher income taxes on the wealthy.

Voters may be sour on socialism, but they're not thrilled with capitalism either. Three in four poll participants called the U.S. economy poor or not so good; just 2% called it excellent, and 70% said the system favors the wealthy. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index hit all-time lows this year. That anger powered populist winners from Adam Hamilton in Kansas to James Talarico in Texas, who flipped a Senate seat and declared the real fight is top versus bottom, not left versus right. Eighteen Sanders-endorsed candidates won, including in Ohio and Montana, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a video on X that Democrats won by being populist economic fighters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the DSA's biggest star, is seemingly weighing a 2028 White House bid — and the party's dilemma is whether left-wing populism can grow the coalition without scaring off the swing-state moderates it needs. Romer acknowledged plenty of people voted Democratic with their teeth gritted. RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas framed the sweet spot as 'capitalism with a human face,' arguing populist ideas like Medicare for all and capitalism aren't mutually exclusive. Wall Street's reaction was muted this time: Bank of America analysts flagged what heavier scrutiny of social media platforms and AI data centers could mean for those shares, and CIBC built a basket of stocks it expects to benefit from a Democratic Congress. After Mamdani's primary win, Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman said he was 'a bit depressed,' and Partnership for New York City's Kathryn Wylde had warned business leaders ahead of Mamdani's victory.