进步人士本周在美国的重大胜利芝加哥和威斯康星州给民主党的左翼注入了一股动力——并使党内关于政策和竞选信息的分歧重新浮出水面。
进步人士布兰登·约翰逊(Brandon Johnson)在风城市长竞选中战胜了温和派民主党人保罗·瓦拉斯(Paul Vallas)，珍妮特·普罗塔西维茨(Janet Protasiewicz)在威斯康星州最高法院与共和党结盟的丹·凯利(Dan Kelly)赢得了一个空缺席位，他们在堕胎权等重大问题上获得了强有力的支持，同时在周二抵挡住了对他们犯罪记录的攻击。
他们的成功标志着民主党左翼的胜利，在最近的选举周期中，中间派候选人在投票中取得了显著胜利，共和党人和温和派对“解除警察”口号的攻击不断叫苦。但随着他们的胜利，民主党中间派警告说，鉴于最近在纽约等地的挫折，候选人被认为对罪犯手软。
“事实上，布兰登·约翰逊可以反对挂在他脖子上的‘解散警察’的口号，反对(警察兄弟会)，我认为这对进步人士来说是令人难以置信的振奋，”我们革命的执行董事约瑟夫·吉瓦尔盖兹说。“在犯罪和公共安全的问题上，我们不必逃避或采取守势。”
在整个竞选过程中，约翰逊和普罗塔西维茨的对手都试图将他们视为对犯罪手软。
瓦拉斯强调了约翰逊曾经说过的话，即解除对警察的资助是一个“真正的政治目标”，并指责他计划大幅削减警察局预算。与此同时，凯利强调了普罗塔谢维奇过去的判决，暗示她对暴力罪犯心慈手软。
约翰逊为自己辩护说，他不会削减芝加哥警察局的预算，并将寻求增加200名侦探。Protasiewicz指责Kelly篡改了她的记录，同时转移了对堕胎的关注，这个问题对她的竞选活动更有利。
威斯康辛州的民主党政治战略家斯考特·罗斯(Scot Ross)在提到堕胎时说，“犯罪没有上升，因为对选民来说，有一个问题更重要。”
进步人士指出，这些成功的反驳表明候选人不再需要害怕共和党对犯罪的攻击。
约翰逊的竞选顾问比尔·尼德哈特(Bill Neidhardt)曾是伯尼·桑德斯总统竞选的助手，他认为，两位候选人的做法可以被视为民主党两派在即将到来的竞选中如何最好地处理犯罪问题的典范。
他说:“我认为你在布兰登·约翰逊的竞选中看到的不仅是进步人士的蓝图，也是全国民主党人的蓝图。”
“共和党对警察的攻击是针对每一个民主党人的，”奈德哈特说。“你(获胜)的方式不仅仅是把它放在一边，提出你自己的平台和公共安全，还要与人们对医疗保健、教育和经济的直接关注联系起来。”
在全国范围内，自由主义者正在做笔记。
“对我来说，大标题是选民继续支持以人为本的候选人将为自由而战，”MoveOn执行董事拉赫纳·埃廷说。
然而，党内的其他人则敦促进步人士加大改革力度。
中间派立法者指责“解除警察”咒语的突出爆炸帮助共和党人在2020年获得众议院席位，当时他们预计会失去阵地。去年，纽约共和党竞选团队对单一问题的关注帮助共和党人在该州翻转了四个众议院席位，这些胜利最终成为该党牢牢控制众议院的关键。
中间派还警告说，不要过度推断芝加哥和威斯康星州的教训，因为候选人取得了重大胜利，他们专注于增加警察部门的资金，包括乔·拜登在2020年的胜利和纽约市长埃里克·亚当斯在2021年的胜利，而不是在刑事司法方面拥有更进步平台的候选人。
担任瓦拉斯竞选顾问的资深民主党政治策略师乔·特里皮(Joe Trippi)指出，芝加哥市长竞选的差距约为3个百分点，他警告该党说，如果约翰逊不能在芝加哥这样的民主党大本营轻松获胜，一名进步候选人可能会在竞争更激烈的领域挣扎。
“不管怎样，这并不是完全的拥抱或拒绝……布兰登赢了——他值得表扬。他的团队也是如此。我只是说，但是读进去太夸张了。特里皮说:“它实际上说的是，存在着深刻的分歧。
2023年4月4日，工会组织者兼库克县专员布兰登·约翰逊在芝加哥当选市长后发表讲话。
亚历克斯·乌鲁布莱夫斯基/盖蒂图片社
特里皮说:“我认为你不会看到任何人在佐治亚州、亚利桑那州、蒙大拿州、宾夕法尼亚州和俄亥俄州竞选时，用布兰登·约翰逊在芝加哥险胜的那种言辞竞选。”
虽然Protasiewicz以超过55%的选票赢得了胜利，但威斯康辛州人也在周二的全州选举中以较大优势通过了共和党支持的宪法修正案，该修正案将扩大威斯康辛州法官考虑设置现金保释和其他更严格的审前释放条件的标准。
中左翼智库第三条道路(Third Way)的执行副总裁吉姆·凯斯勒(Jim Kessler)补充说:“如果民主党人放松了对犯罪的警惕，这将是一个自我造成的伤口，将在许多周期内产生反响。”。“这在2020年摧毁了我们。确实如此。拜登赢了，没有提携。当然，在2022年，我们在纽约等地付出了代价，我们在郊区付出了代价，在那些没那么蓝的地方。”
尽管如此，策略师在周二的结果中看到了一个可能的中间立场，即只强调增加资金或改革警察部门，既不逃避犯罪，也不接受进步人士的所有要求。
总部位于纽约的民主党策略师Jon Reinish告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，去年民主党在该州的失利引发了“一系列PTSD ”,但向选民表明犯罪是一个问题，并且不消除他们的担忧，可能会为讨论改革开辟一条途径。
“我认为，当民主党人试图说，‘嗯，犯罪不是一个真正的问题’，嗯，是的，如果人们在地铁和公共交通工具上感到不安全，它就是一个问题。但是，如果你就解决方案是什么样的以及政策如何转变为安全和公平进行直截了当和坦率的对话，并且你以强有力的方式证明这一点，那么它就可以取得突破，”他说。
“当你这样做的时候，你就不那么容易被煽动了，”Reinish说。"当你吹口哨经过墓地时，你很容易被攻击."
Progressives' big night reignites intraparty divides in the Democratic Party
Progressives' big victories this week inChicagoandWisconsininjected the Democratic Party's left flank with a jolt of momentum -- and resurfaced intraparty divides over policy and campaign messaging.
Brandon Johnson, a progressive who won the Windy City's mayoral race against moderate Democrat Paul Vallas, and Janet Protasiewicz, who won an open seat on Wisconsin's Supreme Court against GOP-aligned Dan Kelly, clinched victory with muscular support for top issues like abortion rights while fending off avalanches of attacks over their records on crime on Tuesday.
Their successes marked triumphs for a Democratic Party's left wing beset by prominent wins by centrist candidates up and down the ballot in recent election cycles and incessant handwringing over Republican and moderate attacks on the "defund the police" slogan. But with their wins came warnings from Democratic centrists over reading tea leaves in light of recent setbacks in places like New York where candidates got pegged as soft on criminals.
"The fact that Brandon Johnson could go up against the 'defund the police' slogan that was hanging around his neck, go up against the [Fraternal Order of Police], I think it's incredibly heartening for progressives," said Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution. "We don't have to run away or be defensive on the issue of crime and public safety."
Johnson and Protasiewicz's opponents tried to peg each of them as soft on crime throughout their entire campaigns.
Vallas highlighted comments in which Johnson once said defunding the police was a "real political goal" and accused him of planning to slash the police department budget. Kelly, meanwhile, highlighted past sentences Protasiewicz handed down to suggest she was soft on violent criminals.
Johnson defended himself by saying he wouldn't cut the Chicago Police Department's budget and would seek to add 200 detectives. And Protasiewicz accused Kelly of cherrypicking her record while shifting much of the focus on abortion, an issue more favorable for her campaign.
"Crime didn't take off because there was an issue that was more important for voters," Scot Ross, a Democratic political strategist from Wisconsin said, referencing abortion.
Progressives pointed to those successful rebuttals to suggest that candidates no longer need to fear GOP attacks on crime.
Johnson's campaign adviser, Bill Neidhardt, a former aide for Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, argued both candidates' approaches could be considered a model for both factions of the Democratic party in how to best approach the issue of crime in upcoming contests.
"I think what you saw in Brandon Johnson's campaign is a blueprint for not only progressives, but Democrats across the country," he said.
"This Republican attack [defund the police] comes against every single Democrat," Neidhardt said. "And the way that you [win] is not only by brushing it aside and putting forth your own platform and public safety, but also connecting with people's immediate concerns around health care, education, and the economy."
And nationally, liberals were taking notes.
"To me the big headline is that voters keep showing up for candidates that have a people-first agenda are gonna fight for freedom," said MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting.
Others in the party, however, urged progressives to pump the breaks.
The explosion in prominence of the "defund the police" mantra was blamed by centrist lawmakers for helping Republicans gain House seats in 2020 when they were expected to lose ground. And a near single-issue focus by GOP campaigns in New York last year helped Republicans flip four House seats in the state -- wins that ended up being key in the party clinching control of the chamber.
Centrists also warned against over-extrapolating lessons from Chicago and Wisconsin given major victories by candidates who were laser focused on adding funding to police departments, including Joe Biden's win in 2020 and New York City Mayor Eric Adams' win in 2021, over candidates with more progressive platforms on criminal justice.
Veteran Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi, who advised Vallas' campaign, pointed to the roughly 3-point margins in Chicago's mayoral race, warning the party that if Johnson couldn't romp in a Democratic stronghold like Chicago, a progressive candidate could struggle in more competitive areas.
"It's not a complete embrace or rejection one way or the other…Brandon's, win--he deserves credit. And so does his team. I'm just saying but reading into it is way over the top. What it really said was, there's a deep division," said Trippi.
"I don't think that you're gonna see anybody running in Georgia, Arizona, Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, running anywhere near the kind of rhetoric that Brandon Johnson used to narrowly win a race in Chicago," Trippi said.
And while Protasiewicz sailed to victory with over 55% of the vote, Wisconsinites also passed with wide margins a GOP-backed constitutional amendment during Tuesday's statewide election that would widen the criteria Wisconsin judges' could view to consider setting cash bail and other, stricter conditions for releasing someone ahead of their trial.
"If Democrats let their guard down on crime, it will be a self-inflicted wound that will reverberate for many cycles," added Jim Kessler, the executive vice president of the center-left Third Way think tank. "This destroyed us in 2020. It really did. Biden won, and there were no coattails. And certainly in 2022, we were paying the price in places like New York, and we were paying them in the suburbs, in the places where it's less blue."
Still, strategists saw in Tuesday's results a possible middle ground between emphasizing only boosted funding or overhauling police departments -- neither running away from crime nor embracing all of progressives' demands.
Jon Reinish, a New York-based Democratic strategist, told ABC News there was "a bunch of PTSD" around Democrats' losses in the state last year but that leveling with voters that crime is an issue and not dismissing their concerns could open an avenue for talking about reforms.
"I think that when Democrats tried to say, 'well, crime isn't really an issue,' well, yes it is if people don't feel safe on the subway and public transportation. But if you have a straightforward and frank conversation about what solutions look like and how policy turns into both safety and fairness, and you make that case in a strong way, then it can break through," he said.
"When you do that, you are way less easy to demagogue," Reinish said. "When you whistle past the graveyard, you can be easily attacked."
