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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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A group of Democrats have rebuked the party’s most progressive wing, signing onto a new centrist initiative called “Promise to America” which vows to “reject” socialism and back strong borders, capitalism, and patriotism.
The pledge to U.S. voters to fight “extremes” on both the left and right, released on Friday, comes after a streak of victories for Democratic Socialists of America’s candidates in primaries in New York, which prompted a vitriolic attack from President Donald Trump.
Seizing on the wins reported by all three candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, Trump stoked fears that the Democratic Party has been taken over by “godless communists” threatening the “traditional American way of life.”
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In a post on Truth Social, the president called the primary victories of the three leftwing candidates backed by Mamdani “the most serious threat to our Country since its existence 250 years ago.” He warned that these “ruthless communists” will attack all religions and particularly Christianity.
Mockingly, Trump added that he could be the “the greatest communist in history” if, as such he could give free rent, houses and food. “Unfortunately, after two or three years, the country where this is taking place would fail. It always does, and then you’ll start living in squalor.”
The warning has largely been interpreted as a new Republican strategy ahead of the competitive midterm elections, which the party has been growing seriously concerned about as the president’s approval rating plunges.
Who Are the Democrats in Promise to America?
Organizers of Promise to America, which had been released earlier this week, revealed the names of 15 Democrats who have signed onto its pledge, including ten House representatives and five candidates to the House:
- Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY): co-leader of the initiative
- Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA): co-leader of the initiative
- Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)
- Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV)
- Rep. Don Davis (D-NC)
- Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (D-TX)
- Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY)
- Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR)
- Rep. Kristin McDonald Rivet (D-MI)
- Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH)
- Jessica Killin (running for Colorado’s 5th Congressional District)
- Marlene Galán Woods (running for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District)
- Bobby Pulido (running for Texas’ 15th Congressional District)
- Jamie Ager (running for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District)
- Paul Barringer (running for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District)
Suozzi and Gray, the co-leaders of the initiative, are the only two Democrats who flipped red districts in 2024 won by Trump in that same year.
Suozzi said that the group aims to secure signatures from 20 Democratic candidates, 200 state and local officials, and 2,000 activists, as reported by The New York Times.
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A Battle For the Soul of the Democratic Party
The victories of the Mamdani-backed congressional candidates in their New York primaries this week has highlighted the ongoing tension within the Democratic Party over its identity and future as it prepares for the November midterms.
The party has always contained different wings pulling it towards different directions. But the success of Mamdani’s own mayoral campaign, and the resounding victories of progressive candidates Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Micah Lasher in Tuesday’s New York primaries, are sending home the message that Democratic voters are willing to embrace bolder, more vocal left-wing representatives and move the party leftward.
“Our movement is growing because working people are fed up with the high cost of rent and groceries and medical bills. They know we deserve good union jobs, affordable rent, dignified lives. They’re ready to try something else—socialism,” the Democratic Socialist of America wrote on social media this week.
Promise to America is a direct response to this shake-up of the Democratic establishment which is now clearly spilling into national politics, as Trump and Republicans warn of the U.S. becoming a “communist country.”
Democrats are now seeing that the rise of progressive, socialist candidates—so far limited to places like New York and Maine—can easily be demonized and weaponized by the GOP and MAGA, and could turn into a serious weakness in the midterms and in 2028.
“There’s certain things that I believe in that are not being reflected in the current environment, especially with some of these races on Tuesday,” Suozzi told Fox News this week.
Political scientist Hans C. Noel, an associate professor of Government at Georgetown University and co-director of the Georgetown Democracy Initiative, thinks that Democrats—especially centrist ones—should not read too much into the primary victories of Mamdani-backed candidates on Tuesday or “any small number” of elections.
“We’ve seen a huge range of primaries this year, and together, they don’t all point in the same direction,” he told Newsweek. “In this case, these are New York electorates, which are overwhelmingly Democratic and not very representative of the rest of the country. So progressives and centrists alike should not read too much into them,” he said.
There is no denying, however, that there is “and has often been a conflict between the more ideologically extreme wings of each party and its more mainstream elements,” Noel said.
“There are also often centrists who are more moderate than the mainstream of the party. Party leaders always work to hold those factions together, and the leaders of those factions try to shape the party in their direction,” he added. “So this is part of that long-running conflict,” he said of “Promise to America,” the new centrist initiative.
“Some of that conflict is about policy, and some of that conflict is about how aggressive the party should be in its attitude toward compromise and cooperation with the other side.”
The initiative “is an attempt to navigate the intra-party conflict that the NY primary races highlighted,” Noel said.
“The text of the promise is very focused on the success of the party. The initiative believes that reminding voters that most Democrats are not ideologically extreme will help, and it probably will with some voters. Others want the more aggressive approach,” he added.
Moderate, Centrist Identity for the Democratic Party
“The far-left and the far-right, they are all very well organized. But those of us that don’t support these far-left or far-right principles need to do a better job organizing and getting our message out.”
With this in mind, Promise to America is trying to reaffirm a more moderate, centrist identity for the Democratic Party. In its pledge, the group stated that they are “capitalist, not socialist,” “mainstream, not extreme,” and “proud, not ashamed of America.” That they want “safety, not lawlessness” and they are fiscally “responsible, not reckless.”
The Democratic Socialist of America have already hit back at the group, writing on X that the fifteen Democrats who have signed onto the new centrist initiative have cumulatively “raked in a whopping $10,088,996 from the Israel lobby. Nothing moderate about that.”
Israel—and the country’s attacks on Gaza—have proven one of the most divisive issues within the Democratic Party and an increasingly sensitive issue for candidates.
“Should we tally up their Big Tech donations next?,” the group added on social media, threatening to expose more connection between Promise to America and donors which can prove controversial for Democratic voters.
Newsweek contacted Promise to America and Democratic Socialist of America for comment by email on Saturday morning.
Noel agrees that Republicans will definitely point to the successes of the Mamdani-backed candidates in New York as evidence that the party is moving to the left.
“But Republicans also portrayed Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as extreme left candidates, even though most Democrats don’t see it that way. So that’s probably going to happen either way,” he said.
“For that matter, Democrats, too, tend to find the most extreme Republicans and use them as stand-ins for the rest of the party. I think evidence is that both parties have strong ideological wings, and that the Republican right wing has been more influential on the party than the Democratic left wing has been.”
Update, 6/29/2026 3:45 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from political scientist Hans C. Noel.
Correction, 6/29/2026 9:45 a.m. ET: This article previously mistakenly stated that Jamie Ager and Paul Barringer were running in New York. They are both running in North Carolina.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly
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