The Left Won Primaries. Then It Beat Republicans.

Nine verified winners first ousted Democratic incumbents. Manny Rutinel and Claire Valdez add two more contested-primary victories, including a Republican-held swing-seat flip.

When Manny Rutinel won Colorado’s 8th District Democratic primary in June, some supporters of his more moderate opponent worried he couldn’t beat Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. Colorado Public Radio recorded their doubts, alongside Republican attacks portraying Rutinel as the face of a socialist takeover.

On November 3, the Associated Press called the general election for Rutinel. He won the Democratic nomination, then defeated the Republican incumbent in a district that had changed parties in consecutive elections.

That is the two-election story behind part of the left’s 2026 results. Candidates won a fight over who should represent Democrats, then won against Republicans when the office itself was on the ballot.

Scapi has verified nine left and progressive candidates who completed an even more specific sequence: they defeated a sitting Democratic incumbent in the primary, then won a general election against a Republican. These are reported election-night victories, with the primary and general opponents checked separately.

The congressional group includes three democratic socialists: Melat Kiros, Donavan McKinney and Darializa Avila Chevalier. Brad Lander, backed by Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani in his primary victory over Dan Goldman, belongs in the progressive coalition without being mislabeled a DSA candidate.

Those primary victories survived November. Kiros won against Christy Peterson, McKinney against T.P. Nykoriak, Lander against Jennifer Moore and Avila Chevalier against Jomo M. Williams, whose Republican ballot line is recorded in the New York City Board of Elections’ contest list.

The same sequence reached state and local offices. DSA-backed Chris Gilmer-Hill defeated Helena Scott in Michigan’s primary, and WDIV’s general-election results mark him as the winner against Republican Bruce Langran.

In Providence, democratic socialist David Morales won the mayoralty after defeating Mayor Brett Smiley in September’s Democratic primary. His November opponent, Dave Talan, ran as a Republican.

Delaware adds three Working Families Party-backed winners. After unseating Democratic lawmakers in September, Shay Frisby, Branden Fletcher-Dominguez and Pamela Salaam each won general races that included Republican opponents, according to Decision Desk HQ’s winner designations and the state’s unofficial returns.

Rutinel belongs in a related category because Shannon Bird, his principal Democratic primary opponent, was not the sitting member of Congress. Claire Valdez also won a contested Democratic nomination for an open seat before winning New York’s 7th District against a field that included Republican Melvin Rivera.

These victories establish that left and progressive nominees can beat Republicans. Their political meaning depends partly on where they happened: Kiros won Colorado’s most heavily Democratic congressional district, and several other candidates retained strongly Democratic seats.

Rutinel provides the more direct test of competitive-seat electability. Colorado’s 8th had elected a Democrat in 2022 and Evans in 2024, both narrowly, before choosing the candidate who had won the more progressive side of the 2026 Democratic primary.

His campaign also complicates any claim that an unchanged left platform was the sole reason for that win. The Colorado Sun reported that Rutinel moderated earlier positions on Medicare for All, fracking and student-debt cancellation during the primary.

A safe-seat victory and a swing-seat flip answer different questions, and no single result can tell us how a hypothetical centrist would have performed. But a blanket claim that left candidates cannot win general elections has to contend with these actual winners.

They won the nomination and the office. The argument about left-wing electability has to account for both.