A wave of far-left primary victories across six states is on track to double the House "Squad" from seven members to roughly 14, handing democratic socialists their largest congressional bloc ever and setting up fresh battles over impeachment, immigration enforcement, and the party's direction.
From Brooklyn to Colorado to Philadelphia, candidates backed by Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America have knocked off establishment incumbents or cleared crowded primaries in districts so blue that a November win is all but guaranteed. The result, the New York Post reported, is a caucus that could wield real leverage in a narrowly divided House, especially with the Polymarket prediction market putting Democratic odds of retaking the chamber at 88 percent.
The expansion did not happen by accident. Justice Democrats, the outfit that helped launch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's career, endorsed and funded candidates in New Jersey, Texas, and Pennsylvania. DSA threw its weight behind others. And AOC herself endorsed at least two of the newcomers, lending her fundraising reach and social-media following to a recruitment drive that establishment Democrats failed to counter.
The roster of incoming Squad-aligned candidates stretches across the map. Claire Valdez won the June primary for New York's 7th House District, a deep-blue Brooklyn seat, after vowing to implement nationwide rent control. Darializa Chevalier, 32, took New York's 10th Congressional District, which covers Harlem, in that same June cycle.
Chevalier's record drew immediate scrutiny. She attended an anti-Israel rally the day after the October 7 Hamas attacks, and she has been reported to have said the United States committed worse atrocities than Hamas. Separate reporting linked her to statements echoing Kremlin talking points that blamed the U.S. for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In Colorado, 29-year-old Melat Kiros, described as a socialist, barista, and Ph.D. student, unseated a 15-term establishment Democrat. National Review noted that her victory ended what would have been a 30-year tenure for the incumbent in the state's 1st Congressional District, calling the win part of a broader progressive wave poised to expand the Squad coalition.
Frederick Haynes, a 65-year-old Texas pastor endorsed by Justice Democrats, easily won his March primary after positioning himself to the left of Rep. Jasmine Crockett. In Philadelphia, 56-year-old Chris Rabb, a self-described "radical" and "rabble-rouser" backed by AOC, DSA, and Justice Democrats, trounced establishment-backed rivals for what the Post called "the nation's bluest congressional district." No Republican is even running, so Rabb's November seat is assured.
Rabb has championed government-run grocery stores, a proposal that would have been a fringe curiosity a decade ago but now lands comfortably inside the Squad's policy universe.
The pattern extends beyond the Squad's traditional coastal strongholds. Democratic primary voters have been ousting aging incumbents at a pace Republicans cannot match, and 2026 accelerated the trend.
Perhaps no incoming candidate carries more baggage than Adam Hamawy, a 56-year-old Princeton plastic surgeon who won the Democratic primary in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District. The Washington Examiner reported that Hamawy won with 27.4 percent of the vote in a 12-candidate field, securing endorsements from AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
Hamawy's past drew pointed questions. He testified that he met convicted terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot, in 1991 and formed a close relationship that included a 13-hour car ride to an Islamist conference. His campaign acknowledged the connection but framed it narrowly.
"At the time, the man in question was one of very few religious figures in what was then a very small Muslim community in New Jersey, he saw him speak in religious settings in his early 20s."
A Hamawy campaign spokesperson offered that explanation, but the district is deep blue, and Hamawy faced no serious pressure to withdraw. He is virtually guaranteed a congressional seat in November.
Not every Squad-aligned newcomer has a clear path. William Lawrence, 36, co-founded the Sunrise Movement and clinched his Michigan primary, but his swing district makes the general election a genuine contest. Lawrence drew attention for his public praise of controversial streamer Hasan Piker, telling him, "You're the man!"
Lawrence's race will test whether the Squad's brand plays outside safely Democratic territory. If he wins, the expanded caucus gains a foothold in competitive Midwest turf. If he loses, the Squad still adds roughly half a dozen new members from safe seats, more than enough to shift internal caucus dynamics.
Meanwhile, the broader socialist movement notched another win when Rashida Tlaib secured her fifth-term Democratic primary. Fox News reported that Tlaib defeated Michigan state lawmaker Shanelle Jackson and Inkster Mayor Byron Nolen, part of a pattern in which DSA-backed candidates have steadily expanded their influence since Tlaib and AOC first entered Congress.
DSA praised Tlaib in a statement, saying she had been "a strong voice in the halls of the Capitol, unapologetically standing up for the working class everywhere." The endorsement language is routine, but the organizational muscle behind it is not. DSA's candidate pipeline now stretches from local school boards to the U.S. House.
Not every Squad-aligned candidate rode the wave. Former Squad member Cori Bush lost her Missouri primary rematch against Rep. Wesley Bell, AP News reported, failing to reclaim the St. Louis seat she lost two years earlier. AIPAC spent millions again to support Bell, as it did in 2024 when Bush was first ousted after criticizing Israel's military response in Gaza.
Bush was blunt in defeat:
"It p***** me off that for the next two years this community will be represented by someone that didn't deem you valuable enough to show up to one candidate forum where there were audience comments."
Sandra Milbrandt, a Missouri voter, offered a different view: "We had Cori Bush before, and a lot of things went wrong. Wesley Bell has been doing good. So why would we not keep him there?" The loss is a reminder that money and local dissatisfaction can still check the Squad's advance, but Missouri was the exception in 2026, not the rule.
Bush's primary challenge drew national attention as a test of whether the socialist faction could recapture lost ground from the Democratic establishment. The answer, at least in Missouri, was no.
What does a 14-member Squad actually do in the next Congress? Longtime GOP consultant Doug Heye offered a blunt assessment of the caucus's trajectory.
"It's becoming a bigger part of the party."
Heye added a specific warning about what the expanded bloc would prioritize:
"They will be the loudest voices pushing for impeachment."
That prediction carries weight. The original Squad moved articles of impeachment against President Trump in 2019. A caucus twice that size, operating in a narrowly divided House, would have far more leverage to force floor votes or extract concessions from Democratic leadership on everything from an ICE abolition bill to impeachment proceedings.
A former House leadership aide, speaking without attribution, put it even more simply: "They will not compromise." That stubbornness is a feature, not a bug, for the Squad's base, and a headache for any future Speaker trying to hold a fractious majority together.
The tension between the Squad and the broader Democratic caucus is not new. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi clashed with the group after Ilhan Omar compared the United States and Israel to the Taliban. Omar's record of inflammatory statements has been a recurring source of friction, and a larger Squad will only multiply the pressure points.
The Squad's origin story is well known. After winning her own upset primary roughly eight years ago, AOC posted a photo on Instagram with Reps. Omar, Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley during freshman orientation. The caption was a single word: "Squad." The nickname stuck, and President Trump amplified it, sometimes to the group's benefit.
In one series of tweets, Trump called the Squad "a very racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart," adding, "They are pulling the once great Democrat Party far left." The attacks raised the Squad's national profile and turned its members into progressive celebrities, a dynamic that helped fuel the very recruitment pipeline now bearing fruit.
AOC has since tried to navigate between her insurgent roots and broader political ambitions. Her attempts to distance herself from the progressive movement she helped build have drawn skepticism from both sides, but her endorsements of Hamawy and Rabb show she is still willing to invest in the Squad's expansion when it suits her.
The question now is whether a 14-member bloc can maintain the discipline that made the original four effective. A bigger caucus means more voices, more competing priorities, and more opportunities for internal disagreement. But it also means more votes to withhold from Democratic leadership, and in a chamber where margins are razor-thin, even a handful of holdouts can stall legislation or force concessions.
Then-Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, warned her party after the 2020 elections: "Don't say socialism ever again. We need to get back to the basics." Six years later, Democratic primary voters have delivered the opposite verdict.
AOC has faulted her own party for avoiding internal competition in the past. Now the competition has arrived, and it is running to her left.
Democratic leadership spent years treating the Squad as a manageable nuisance. Come January, they may discover that a caucus you refuse to confront eventually becomes one you cannot control.