#Resistance Democrats are flopping in primaries

\#Resistance Democrats are flopping in primaries - POLITICO

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\#Resistance Democrats are flopping in primaries

Alexander Vindman’s Senate primary loss Tuesday is the latest stumble from a top Trump critic.

!Alex Vindman receives well-wishes from supporters while leaving a primary election night watch party.

*Florida Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alex Vindman receives well-wishes from supporters while leaving a primary election night watch party at the American Legion Post 222 event hall in Oakland Park, Florida, on Aug. 18, 2026.

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images*

By Samuel Benson

08/20/2026 04:45 AM EDT

During President Donald Trump’s first term, they were resistance stars. During his second term, they couldn’t survive primaries.

Alexander Vindman’s Senate primary loss in Florida on Tuesday is the latest stumble for Democrats who rose to prominence during the impeachment trials and accountability protests of Trump’s first term. Vindman, a former National Security Council aide who testified during the 2019 House impeachment inquiry, made standing up to Trump and other forms of corruption a centerpiece of his campaign.

His national profile helped haul in big money, but that wasn’t enough to stave off an upset loss to democratic socialist Angie Nixon, whose win showed the shifting politics of the Democratic base.

“Vindman is a hero, but memories fade and the focus of most folks is on the cost of living,” said longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod. “She made those issues her focus.”

Democratic voters clearly want fighters who will stand up to the president and the GOP. But the string of losses for resistance candidates from the first Trump term illustrates a new era for the restive Democratic base, where vocal opposition to the president through official channels and public remonstrations no longer guarantees success.

The political graveyard of Trump-resistance-fighter campaigns is growing by the week.

Two of the 2021 House impeachment managers, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), are among them: DeGette lost her reelection bid to a democratic socialist this summer, while Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial primary after a string of sexual assault allegations. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), the lead majority counsel in the first Trump impeachment inquiry, was ousted in his primary. Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer honored for his heroics on Jan. 6, 2021, lost a House bid in Maryland — his second unsuccessful run.

Other Democrats who built their profiles on Trump resistance flopped as well.

Tom Steyer, a prominent financier of the Trump resistance movement, failed to advance in the California gubernatorial primary. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Oversight and Intelligence committees during the 2021 impeachment, fell short in his Senate bid. Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas), both of whom led impeachment pushes against Trump, were ousted by younger challengers. And George Conway, a longtime Trump critic and Lincoln Project co-founder, won just six percent of the vote in a House primary in New York City.

“‘#Resistance’ was a very Trump 1.0 mood, and now we are in a different moment of anger,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way. “They’re mad about the war. They’re mad about costs. They’re mad about the establishment not having delivered anything for them.”

Not all the races were defined by Trump accountability politics. Swalwell dropped his bid after multiple sexual assault allegations, several incumbents lost to DSA challengers in closed primaries, and in Goldman’s case, the debate over Israel was a major factor.

A Democratic operative who worked on one of the resistance races, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the throughline is that those candidates are “institutionalists” who argued the justice system was going to hold Trump accountable. But voters have lost faith in those institutions after he returned to office, and were sold by other candidates’ messaging that relied more on railing against those very systems.

“The prescription isn’t what they were looking for anymore,” the operative said.

If Democrats retake control of the House, they will have to confront their base’s appetite for holding Trump accountable. Republicans have long warned that Democrats will immediately move to impeach Trump should they regain a House majority in 2027. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) — the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — hasn’t ruled out impeachment.

But some Democrats are more careful. “There are certain sections of people that definitely want Democrats to prioritize impeachment of the president. There are also other segments of people that want Democrats to prioritize bringing down the cost of living,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), who lost a runoff in a newly gerrymandered district. “You can’t just focus on one thing at the exclusion of the other.”

These electoral results, along with a growing list of Trump-endorsed candidates who have lost their primaries, suggest Americans are ready to move past Trump, argued Mike Madrid, who co-founded (and later disaffiliated with) the anti-Trump GOP group Lincoln Project.

“People are just tired of him, broadly. They don’t want to deal with him and the fights and the exhaustion and the never-Trump model, but also the sycophantic MAGA support model either,” Madrid said, pointing to the string of Trump-endorsed candidates who lost primaries on Tuesday, from Florida to Wyoming. “It’s Trump fatigue.’”

Some candidates are taking note — and adjusting accordingly.

Watch: The Conversation

Adam Schiff on Democrats’ ‘losing message,’ AOC and AIPAC

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Adam Schiff on Democrats’ ‘losing message,’ AOC and AIPAC

David Jolly, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida and a former GOP House me