In the latest result in a congressional primary race in Arizona yesterday, a candidate defeated a rival who had been backed by the Democratic Party establishment in the race for an open congressional seat that had been held by a Republican and is now contested by a Trump-backed candidate.

Amish Shah, an emergency room doctor, beat back the choice of Democratic leadership in Arizona on Wednesday in the latest sign that the party’s voters are increasingly willing to override the national machine.

Shah won his primary in Arizona’s 1st congressional district over the candidate favored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in Washington, a significant result in a race the DCCC has identified as central to retaking the House.
…

The DCCC had thrown its weight behind the former Republican Marlene Galán-Woods, a former television journalist in Phoenix who switched parties in Trump’s first term.

The competition for the 1st congressional district, an affluent area that includes north-east Phoenix, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley, is rated by both parties as one of the more winnable Republican-held districts in the country, and is expected to help determine control of the US House of Representatives. Although Republicans hold a voter registration advantage, the district has shifted toward the center over the last decade.

There are broader trends at play other than merely anti-establishment fervor.

The trend runs deeper than establishment-picked candidates losing to committee-backed alternatives: it also shows up as a broader revolt against long-serving incumbents and traditional pro-Israel financial networks.

In June, Adriano Espaillat, a five-term New York congressman and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, lost his primary to Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist who was backed by the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and cast Espaillat as out of step with voters on Israel policy and immigration enforcement. The result came despite about $2.9m spent defending Espaillat by a group funded in part by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), making him the sixth House incumbent to lose renomination this cycle.

A similar dynamic played out in Pennsylvania, where state representative Chris Rabb, an anti-Aipac democratic socialist, won the Democratic nomination for an open Philadelphia-area seat over establishment-aligned rivals, and in New Jersey, where the former combat surgeon Adam Hamawy won a crowded primary with the backing of a new anti-Aipac Super Pac and endorsements from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, despite a wave of attack ads against him.
…

Last month the progressive Randy Villegas beat a DCCC-backed candidate for a top battleground district in California’s Central valley. And similarly in Maine, Matt Dunlap defeated a more moderate rival backed by the party.

Another race to watch is the one in Michigan that holds its primary on August 4th.

The contest between Rep. Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed has somehow unearthed every fault line that’s divided the two factions over the years — from gender and racial politics, to Israel and Gaza, to questions of electability and fair play, to money in politics, and much more.

On one side there’s Stevens, a four-term House member who is the preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment — and of AIPAC, which has spent nearly $30 million to support her campaign.

On the other is El-Sayed, a former public health official who’s been backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and their network of supporters and fans.

But the race has quickly gone beyond just them and become about something bigger — the national struggle for influence in the Democratic Party.

A key dividing line is Israel’s policy in Gaza.

Stevens is an unapologetically pro-Israel candidate who wants to continue US military aid to the country and does not believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza. (She said during a Hanukkah event once that “Israel comes to me in my dreams.”) El-Sayed, in contrast, has been sharply critical of Israel throughout this race.
…

Meanwhile, Stevens has been the beneficiary of that nearly $30 million in AIPAC-linked spending — a topic she generally tries to avoid discussing. The ads in question don’t talk about Israel at all and instead praise Stevens on other issues. “It is just a clear indication of where the base of the party is right now that AIPAC has to continually do this spending through their allied outside groups,” Dani Negrete of Indivisible, a progressive group backing El-Sayed, told me.

The question of who is more electable in the general election is one that is used by the establishment.

Another version of the critique is more about whether El-Sayed’s policy positions — for instance, his past support for defunding the police, and his backing of Medicare-for-all — are too far left for this swing state in the general election.

Meanwhile, the left’s argument for why establishment candidates flop is that they fail to excite the base and stimulate turnout. Therefore, they claim, El-Sayed is the safer choice.

Lately, this argument has focused on Israel and Gaza. Left commentators argue that the Biden administration’s support of Israel and failure to stop what they call a genocide in Gaza was a major — perhaps the major — reason Harris lost in 2024, because part of the Democratic base was disillusioned and didn’t turn out. So, some on the left have suggested, if Stevens is the nominee, Democrats are risking the seat by disillusioning the same voters.

Electability in the general election is undoubtedly an important issue. But it is not at all obvious that candidates backed by AIPAC and the Democratic party establishment are more likely to win, given the definite change in the political climate away from both.