Democratic 'socialism panic' produces landslide for the progressive, then landslide for the moderate, seven days apart.

As it ran on the front

The panic began thirteen days before New Hampshire voted. On August 27th, the Washington Examiner reported that Karishma Manzur, a socialist, had closed a fifty-point gap on Chris Pappas, the four-term congressman who had already locked up major endorsements and cleared the field of potential challengers, warning that the "national insurgency" beating establishment Democrats elsewhere was now coming for the Granite State. The next day, Sen. John Fetterman gave the panic its name, telling The Hill the Democratic Party has "a socialism problem" — citing Abdul El-Sayed's Senate campaign in Michigan and Graham Platner's exit from the Maine race. New Hampshire was not in that sentence. It did not need to be; the label was already loose in the wires, a diagnosis applied before anyone examined the patient.

Five days later, on September 2nd, the theory got its first test. Massachusetts held its own Senate primary: Sen. Ed Markey, the twenty-term progressive incumbent, against Rep. Seth Moulton, the moderate running on generational change. The Hill's own account of the race called it a "flipped dynamic" compared to the showdowns making national news — here the progressive was the safe bet and the moderate was the insurgent. Markey won anyway, "easily routing his rival," per that same reporting. A landslide. For the socialist wing of the argument.…