How Did Socialists Perform in 2018 Midterm Elections? Better Than You Might Think.

The following list shows the election victories and losses for socialist candidates running for office during the 2018 midterm elections. The list was created by the team at StoppingSocialism.com.

How did we define “socialist” when constructing this list?: This list includes all candidates for governor, U.S. House, and U.S. Senate endorsed by Our Revolution (Bernie Sanders’ far-left political group) and/or the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States. It also includes all state legislative candidates that support/are members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Some important highlights: This list includes 86 separate races in 35 states. We tracked 30 state legislative seats, five gubernatorial races, one state AG, 46 U.S. House seats, and four U.S. Senate seats. We discovered socialist candidates lost 52 of those races and won 34 (39.5 percent). If uncontested races are excluded, socialist candidates received on average 49 percent of the vote. Their principal opponent received on average 46.9 percent of the vote. On average, socialist candidates’ performed 2 percentage points better than their principal opponent, if uncontested races are excluded. With uncontested races included, socialists on average won by 11.1 percentage points.

To correct errors, please contact Justin Haskins at jhaskins@henrydearborn.org.

Socialist Candidates in 2018 U.S. Midterm Elections

PHOTO: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Paul R. Knapp Learning Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo by Gage Skidmore. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Justin Haskins

Justin Haskins is editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com. Haskins is a widely published writer and political commentator, the senior editor and founder of The Henry Dearborn Institute for Liberty, and the editorial director and research fellow at The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank. Follow him on Twitter @JustinTHaskins.