Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam is launching a Democratic primary challenge against Rep. Valerie Foushee of North Carolina with a slew of national progressive endorsements — the latest sign that the effort on the left to defeat sitting Democrats is more energized and organized than ever before.
“At a certain point we as a Democratic Party, and our leadership, we need to look at the urgency of what our residents are living with every single day. They can’t wait for relief. They can’t wait for three years for new leadership to fight for them. They need a champion now,” Allam told NBC News ahead of her Thursday campaign launch.
Allam is one of several challengers who have launched campaigns against House Democrats they believe are falling short in the fight against President Donald Trump’s administration. But Allam said she is the first to launch her campaign with a particular set of endorsements, from the groups Justice Democrats, Leaders We Deserve, the Working Families Party and the Sunrise Movement, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Those groups and figures have endorsed a number of candidates across the country ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. But the races in which those efforts overlap highlight how the anti-incumbent movement has evolved into a broader, and bigger, effort to reshape the Democratic Party.
Justice Democrats, Leaders We Deserve and Sanders have also all backed state Rep. Donavan McKinney against Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar in Michigan. Sanders and the Working Families Party backed New York City Comptroller Brad Lander on Wednesday as he launched his campaign against Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman.
And state Rep. Justin Pearson launched his campaign against Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee in October with support from Leaders We Deserve and Justice Democrats.
“It shows just how clearly our movement is united to take on not only Republican authoritarianism, but corporatism within the Democratic Party,” said Justice Democrats communications director Usamah Andrabi, who said many of the groups looking to boost primary challengers are in “constant” communication.
David Hogg, founder of Leaders We Deserve, which is backing young Democratic candidates, said, “We know that when we’re going up against special interests, we can’t afford to be divided.”
The constellation of groups supporting the primary challengers reflects a very different primary landscape from just 10 years ago. Back in 2016, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., faced plenty of resistance as he took on Democratic Rep. Mike Honda for a second time.
“When I would walk into a room, everyone would walk in the other direction. I had everyone endorsing against me,” Khanna said.
“But I think it’s a much easier time now if you’re an insurgent, if you’re willing to step up,” Khanna added, adding that there are “so many great organizations” willing to help.
Outside help
Allam noted that her endorsers include a mix of supporters from her last campaign for Congress in 2022, when she lost to Foushee by 9 points in an expensive primary for the then-open seat. Allam, a former Sanders campaign staffer, also said she has built relationships in the grassroots progressive movement.
Groups involved in the primaries said the coordination varies by race. Sanders, for example, is not coordinating with the other groups, said his chief political adviser, Faiz Shakir.
Hogg and Andrabi said their groups are often talking to other organizations and sharing information about candidate operations and how they’re helping the campaigns, often engaging with candidates months ahead of their launches.
“Every cycle it becomes more organized. There’s more cohesion and coordination,” Andrabi said.
Each group also plays its own role.
Justice Democrats, which is focused solely on primaries, often works to recruit candidates and help with operations. Leaders We Deserve also spends money to boost its preferred candidates and help with candidate training, staffing, fundraising and organizing. Allam said Hogg is joining her on Saturday to for a canvass launch. And the Working Families Party can leverage its expansive list of members and volunteers to boost its preferred candidates.
It remains to be seen whether such groups can help challengers put up real fights against Democratic members of Congress, who are very difficult to defeat. Incumbents often bring advantages in name recognition, fundraising and institutional party support. Last year, just four of the hundreds of lawmakers who ran for re-election lost their primaries — two Democrats and two Republicans.
But those backing primary challengers say this election cycle is different. Some challengers are already showing early signs of financial strength, outraising sitting lawmakers in the most recent fundraising quarter.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is grappling with record low favorability ratings and an internal reckoning as Trump’s victory last year has exposed ideological and generational divides over the best path forward.
“We have a Democratic Party that a lot of people have lost faith in, that people don’t trust to fight back against the Republicans,” said Ravi Mangla, a spokesman for the Working Families Party. “In poll after poll we see that voters want a Democratic Party that’s going to fight back, and that is not what people are getting.”
Sanders tapped into the angst within the party this year as he embarked on his national “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, which drew thousands of people to events all over the country. Shakir, his adviser, noted that a number of leaders who spoke at those tour events, including Allam, are now running for office.
“Just the mere act of getting out in the world, doing these really powerful events, earlier in the year has generated the sense that this can be a very different cycle,” Shakir said. He said those events also grew Sanders’ fundraising list, which he can leverage to boost his endorsed candidates.
Allam also said she is running in a different political environment from four years ago, when she made her first run for Congress.
“This isn’t just about me and my campaign,” she said. “We’re seeing this across the country, that there is this dissatisfaction with the status quo and that we can’t just sit idly by and let Trump and his corporate billionaire friends continue to control our government ... that we need to step up and fight back against it.”
Preparing for fights ahead
Taking on a member of Congress is no easy task, and it can come with plenty of pushback from a candidate’s own party.
“I’m a young progressive Muslim woman in the South. Every single campaign that I’ve ever run, there have been folks who have told me to wait my turn,” Allam said.
Foushee responded to Allam's campaign in a statement Thursday, saying, "Throughout my years in public service, I’ve faced every challenge with the same approach: show up, do the work, and stay focused on delivering real results for North Carolina. That commitment is the foundation of everything I’ve done, and it remains unchanged."
Foushee added that her record shows she is "not just paying lip service to our shared progressive values."
Those raising concerns about primaries against incumbents also point to the potential to drain party resources that could be used in battleground races as Democrats are trying to take back control of Congress.
“It’s unfortunate that groups that claim to be Democrats — although they’re not really Democrats, they’re not within the Democratic tent — are spending money and getting incumbents to spend money in primaries when we should be having to spend against Republicans in the fall,” said Cohen, the Tennessee congressman facing a primary challenge.
Cohen said he is preparing to step up his fundraising: “I always run on my record, and that’s what I’m going to do this time. I’m just doing my job, letting people know what I do and continue to bring home what Memphis needs.”
As he faces his own challenge, Cohen said, he is going to scale back the funds he transfers to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “I’d like to do the max amount, but at the present time I can’t do that,” he said.
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., a national finance co-chair for the DCCC, said that he has heard the same from other members of the caucus but that he is not concerned about the committee’s resources heading into the midterms.
DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement to NBC News, “Democrats are united in our mission to take back the majority, and while battleground districts are our primary focus at the DCCC, we remain committed to re-electing all of our incumbents who stand for re-election.”
And Khanna, the California congressman, dismissed concerns about primaries’ draining resources.
“I think the biggest resource we need as a party is new inspiration and a new vision,” he said. “And I’m always a person who looks at the bigger picture instead of the tactics. We didn’t lose elections because of the lack of money. We lost elections because of the lack of moral clarity and boldness.”
Khanna and other Democrats also said they have not yet heard of a more heavy-handed effort from the party to support incumbents, even as more challengers emerge.
After the 2018 midterms, the DCCC barred consultants who worked for primary challengers from being preferred vendors for the committee, sparking a backlash from progressives. The DCCC later revoked the policy.
“I think people recognize that that’s not where the zeitgeist is, that it would backfire,” said Khanna, who opposed the policy, adding later, “The idea that we want to be for competition and not put our thumb on the scale seems to be so basic.”
