In November 2017, Lee Carter won his race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Though he ran as a Democrat, the party cut off support, saying he had not provided them with proper data about his campaign work. Carter, a 30-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, says that he stopped reporting his information because of several security lapses by the party. And he suspects that there were other reasons for the party to be less-than-fully supportive of his campaign. Dominion Energy, the biggest corporate political donor in the state, gave the party $125,000 in 2016. Carter opposed the company’s plans for a natural gas pipeline and a high-voltage transmission line running through residential areas, and his platform called for a ban on corporate political contributions. "I'm openly fighting against the large corporate interests,” he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "For-profit corporations exist to make money, so if they’re giving money to a politician, it’s not out of the goodness of their heart. It’s because they're getting something in return every single time."
Carter’s story, and the off-year election in Virginia more broadly, points to the emergence of a new model and a new infrastructure for redefining the Democratic Party.
The traditional model has been for progressives to try to "push the Democrats left" by focusing on certain issues—a higher minimum wage, for example, or single-payer healthcare—and using donations, volunteer efforts, organized protests, in-person and virtual lobbying campaigns, and votes as leverage over politicians and the party. That model remains powerful in the era of Trump.
"The Democrats anticipated winning three or four or five delegate seats," says Joe Dinkin, WFP’s communications director. "But some of the second-tier races that were seen as less likely pick-up opportunities were places where more boldly progressive candidates ran. Ayala and Guzman ran as full-throated progressives and Latina women in Republican-leaning districts. It shows the weakness of the Democratic strategy of running 'don’t offend anyone' moderates there. These two progressive women of color won by pretty healthy margins in some of the toughest races."
