A Democratic Fracture Is Coming and I Think It Will Be a Good Thing

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End Citizens United, the anti-corruption group behind the No Corporate PAC pledge, counted fewer than 10 members of Congress refusing corporate PAC money in 2017 and counts at least 100 in the Congress that will be sworn in on Jan. 3, 2027.

Below, I read that count beside the Nov. 3, 2026, election results and the polls on the party’s leaders, and then I make my case: a Democratic fracture is coming, probably within the next two elections, and I think it will be a good thing.

The fracture is between wildly popular non-corporate candidates and the corporate Dems. It’s not progressive versus centrist; it’s bought versus unbought, for sale versus priceless. It’s working for us or working for them.

Voters gave Democrats the House and the Senate on Nov. 3, 2026, and the party holds 55 Senate seats while Alaska is still being counted. In the states, Republicans lost 12 legislative chambers and five governor’s offices to Democrats, and most of the country’s governors will be Democrats for the first time in 16 years.

Texas voters chose Gina Hinojosa, a state legislator and civil rights lawyer, over Gov. Greg Abbott, whose campaign spent far more than hers. Ohio voters chose a doctor, Amy Acton, over a billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy.

But how many of the new House members, senators, governors and state legislators are the real deal? How many more real deal Democrats will there be than after 2016, 2020 or 2024?

Before this election, End Citizens United had never recorded more than 73 members of Congress refusing corporate PAC money. The group found corporate PAC money missing from the campaigns of more than half the Democrats who flipped House seats. In the states, the Working Families Party, the progressive party that cross-endorses Democrats, counts more than 100 new state legislators elected with its backing, 38 of them in districts Republicans held.

Abdul El-Sayed’s race in Michigan shows how the unbought side won. Rep. Haley Stevens entered the Democratic Senate primary with far more money and with the backing of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and she lost to El-Sayed, a former public health official. The Republican, Mike Rogers, got her endorsement two days before the general election. Michigan voters elected El-Sayed anyway, in a state Trump carried in 2024.

South Carolina, which Trump won by 18 points in 2024, is sending a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1998: Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, who beat the appointed Republican incumbent, Sen. Darline Graham. Her line during the campaign was “I don’t take a dime of corporate PAC money.”

The tenacity of an El-Sayed or an Andrews will carry not just them but others to greater heights. We are talking about a power balance shift, and the failure of the corporate Dems to respond effectively will fall at their feet.

Schumer might not get to lead the Senate, though House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York is a shoo-in for Speaker. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced on Nov. 10, 2026, “I will not be supporting Chuck to be reelected as the Democratic leader.” The first call for Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland to run against Schumer came from El-Sayed.

Senate Democrats vote in December 2026. Schumer would keep the job even if 27 senators voted against him, and fewer than a dozen have publicly opposed him or declined to commit, by the count of Spectrum News, the cable news network. House Democrats choose their Speaker nominee on Nov. 18, 2026, and Jeffries is the only candidate. These are the early signs of a fracture that has yet to happen.

We have smarter and more charismatic people, and we have more effective solutions, because our candidates are interested in the public good rather than in appeasing corporate masters. Data for Progress, the progressive think tank, compared the two kinds of Democrats in races against Republicans in a 2026 analysis and reported that the ones taking corporate PAC money “perform significantly worse.”

This will get me some heat, but as I see it there’s a real distinction between the GOP and the corporate Dems. A Schumer or a Jeffries sees himself as a necessary evil. We can’t win elections without the dirty money, the thinking goes, but at least we try to help poor people and gay people. We just can’t anger the corporate masters.

Schumer’s allies are making that argument for him now. The case Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, made on Nov. 10, 2026, was the money he raised and the candidates he recruited.

Meanwhile, the GOP can nakedly serve corporations, which makes them better at it than the corporate Dems. On a good faith reading, that leaves the corporate Dems as unwitting controlled opposition.

The growing wing of the Democratic Party, and only the Democratic Party has one, wants to put the people first, always. So they’ll always deliver the best results, and anyone paying attention loves them. That’s why Schumer and Jeffries are rated lower than Trump while Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York are two of the most popular politicians in the nation.

G. Elliott Morris, the data journalist who led FiveThirtyEight after Nate Silver, and the polling firm Verasight asked 2,087 U.S. adults in June 2026 to rate politicians from 0 to 100. Americans gave Schumer a 30 and Jeffries a 36, both below Trump’s 38, and gave Sanders a 45 and Ocasio-Cortez a 41. NBC News pollsters, in a survey of registered voters released Nov. 1, 2026, recorded a positive view of Schumer from 13% and a negative view from 53%.

The same fight Americans are having for the country is being waged right now inside the Democratic Party, and I’ve got news for you: the best folks are gaining forces and resources and getting better constantly. We are the ones building momentum, and they’re losing it.

That exact thing happened in the Republican Party, first between the Tea Party and non-Tea Party factions and then between the MAGA and non-MAGA factions. The Tea Party won its first House seats in November 2010. Within five years a Tea Party challenger had beaten House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his own Virginia primary and Speaker John Boehner had resigned under pressure from the House Freedom Caucus, and in 2016 the MAGA faction took the party’s presidential nomination. That’s exactly what we’re headed towards, but in a good way.

For many reasons I call myself a pessimist with a good attitude. One of them is that nobody has ever been hurt by preparing for the worst and then being surprised when things turn out better. As I’ve said before, it pays to prepare for the best outcome, the worst outcome and the most likely outcome.

In this case, I think it’s going to take one or two more elections for the party to get its head on straight. We’re going to have to draw this distinction in public, and people are already recognizing that this party is not a panacea.

In 2028 we go deep into deep blue territory and swap out the Schumers and Gillibrands for AOCs and El-Sayeds. Schumer’s own seat is on the ballot that year.

So I welcome the fracture.

The unbought side of the party went from fewer than 10 members of Congress to at least 100 in 10 years, and it beat Schumer’s candidate in Michigan. Americans rate Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez above Trump and rate Schumer and Jeffries below him.

It’s possible that fracture could produce the most resounding mandate for a president and a political party that the United States has seen in a generation, resulting in a legislature that can actually pass the laws that currently have broad public support, such as Medicare for All, a $15 federal minimum wage, paid family leave and a ban on stock trading by members of Congress.

It only happens if we make it happen, folks. Check out the Call to Action and Existentialist Republic library below for more information.

Let’s get after it. - Chris

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CALL TO ACTION

Who you’re contacting and how: Reach out to one of your U.S. senators if they are a Democrat or caucus with Democrats. If neither one is, reach out to your state Democratic Party. You can do that by email, phone, FaxZero or even a printed letter. You could even go to their office during business hours, bring donuts, and tell the staff you’re going to talk to them about an issue you care about if the senator isn’t there.

Find your senators by clicking on this sentence.

What you’re asking for: for them to say publicly, before Senate Democrats vote in December 2026, who they are voting for as Democratic leader, and to commit to cosponsoring the Ban Corporate PACs Act, the bill from Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. You can read about the bill by clicking on this sentence.

Let them know who you are, what you want, and why you care. Offices count identical messages once, so write it in your own words.

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