Voters—Not Big Money—Should Choose Democratic Party Nominees

Trump has cleverly combined his corporate and billionaire agenda with populist measures, including significant tax cuts for social security recipients, eliminating taxes on $25,000 in tip income and ending taxes on overtime for most working Americans. He couches his wild executive action on tariffs as economic patriotism.

So, what are the lessons for those of us who oppose Trump’s plunder but also believe that the Democratic Party needs to organize around a populist progressive alternative vision?

First, we need to reject the candidacies of those Democrats who often align with billionaires, and instead elect Democrats to Congress and the White House who are champions for working-class families. Democrats need to advance an action plan and a strategy to accomplish real change that produces not just focus group messaging but actual results.

Additionally, if we accept the premise that most progressive candidates will be Democrats, we need to get big money out of the party’s nominating process.

In the 2024 election, the crypto industry, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other right-wing big money independent expenditures knocked out progressive incumbent representatives like Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri, as well as leading candidates for open seats such as Susheela Jayapal in Portland, Oregon. Candidates in the primaries seeking the Democratic nomination who sided with Republicans on issues like removing the Securities and Exchange Commission from crypto regulation or continuing U.S. weapons shipments to Israel were often directly or indirectly the beneficiaries of big money support or big money attacks on their opponents.

The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United tore up campaign finance laws, equating money with speech and preventing the regulation of independent political expenditures in general elections. But party nominations are private party decisions. State party officials can set their own rules for candidates who run for elected office in their states. Same with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which sets the rules for the nomination of the president. In Pennsylvania, for example, if a candidate has a super majority at the state convention, they are the nominee. In Massachusetts, if a candidate does not meet a minimum threshold of convention delegates, they cannot qualify for the primary ballot.

This year, support among state Democratic parties to block big money independent expenditures is rising. Recently, Arizona and South Carolina Democrats adopted resolutions opposing independent expenditures in the nominating process and established committees to draft implementation proposals for consideration by their state committees.

DNC Chair Ken Martin has announced his support for limits on independent expenditures in the 2028 presidential nominating process and intends to begin consideration of proposed reforms at the August DNC meeting. Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska party chair who earlier this year was elected president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), is advocating for discussion of independent expenditure reform within her Nebraska party and the ASDC. Support from Martin and Kleeb should promote wider discussion among more state parties, particularly those where big money independent expenditures have had a considerable influence in their primaries.

In 2012, when then-Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren ran for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown, the Republican incumbent, they agreed to a “People’s Pledge” eliminating independent expenditures in their general election race. The pledge provided that if either candidate benefitted from independent expenditures, that candidate must donate to a charity an equal amount from their campaign funds. Implementing a similar pledge by political parties is much simpler, since the parties have considerable control over their nominating process. In addition to including financial penalties, state parties and the DNC could prevent candidates who take independent expenditures from participating in debates, deny them access to party voting lists, or in many states bar them outright  from receiving the nomination.

Few, if any, party activists would argue that corporations, billionaires, single interest groups and even Republican donors have an outsize role in deciding Democratic primary winners. One argument some make in countering this reform effort is that these donors are essential to counter Republican independent expenditures in the general election, as long as Citizens United is still in effect. But if donors are committed to electing the Democratic nominee, general election donations are clearly more significant.

Eliminating Citizens United and legislating real limits on big money in our elections remains essential for a functioning democracy. This can be accomplished by Congressional or Supreme Court action. But eliminating big money in the Democratic Party nominating process could be a significant step in reform that emphasizes the party’s commitment to grassroots voters and encourages their participation at every level of party building.

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Larry Cohen is Board Chair of Our Revolution, past president of the Communications Workers of America, and, since 2005, a member of the Democratic National Committee.